Mifflin Park Elementary School teachers and staff are known for their hospitality to families and children, but when one young family showed up at the school recently, teachers Mark Engle and Colleen Boyer knew they had to intervene. A mother mallard duck chose the schools’ green roof as the location for her nest. Soon after moving in, the duck laid several eggs. Engle and Boyer (and many excited K-4 students) kept a close eye on the growing family as the eggs hatched and became a brood of ducklings.
Fearing a dangerous situation for the little ones, Engle and Boyer decided to help the family get to a more suitable, and ground-level, location. The two teachers and their families carefully loaded the chicks into a duck “elevator” and lowered them to safety where the ducklings reunited with their mom. Once on the ground, mama duck’s instincts took over and she led her family to the Rabbit Run stream that runs beside the school.
Rabbit Run stream was recently the site of a district-wide project as hundreds of Governor Mifflin students and Berks County Nature collaborated to create a riparian buffer to help protect the stream and make it a more accommodating to native wildlife.
Watch the video!
