Milwaukie mallard gets her 14 ducklings from a balcony to a pond — with some help

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Dozens of residents from RoseVilla Senior Living in Milwaukie watched “Rosie” the duck as she nested for nearly four weeks in a planter on a third-story apartment balcony.

Then, on Monday afternoon, she led her ducklings safely away from the precarious nest. And the people at RoseVilla helped get all of them to a pond at the nearby Willamette View retirement community.

“It’s the talk of the town,” said RoseVilla maintenance officer Josh Fox.

Fox collected the ducklings in a cat carrier, with mesh sides, because leaving them on the balcony would mean about a 40-foot fall onto the concrete below. He then walked them downstairs and through the apartment complex to meet an anxious Rosie in the car park below.

“Every year since I’ve been here, ducks will lay eggs and we’ll walk them down to the river,” Fox said. Because the ducks nest at different buildings within the RoseVilla community, they all get the nickname “Rosie.”

Penny Naumoff owns the apartment where this Rosie settled. She says in early April there was dirt all over the balcony, and she thought a crow had been digging around for bugs in her planter. Then she saw an egg.

“The thing is, once you have an egg, you can’t do anything,” she said. “You have to leave it alone.”

The Migratory Bird Act of 1918 prohibits disturbing a wild duck’s nest. So Naumoff watched as, over the next two weeks, Rosie returned to lay egg after egg, day after day.

“I thought, ‘This is not good,’” said Naumoff. “How are we going to keep these ducklings from falling over a three-story building? That would be terrible.”

She says the whole thing has been stressful.

“It was sort of like an unexpected pregnancy,” she said. “You’re not ready and it’s like, ‘Wow, I don’t know if I want this or not.’”

Rosie sat for 27 days hardly eating, as is normal. Naumoff built a rapport with her, even putting up a video camera without the duck flying away. She also removed a piece of tape that was stuck to Rosie’s feathers.

Naumoff tried feeding her too.

“I was told very quickly that that is not what Bird Alliance of Oregon recommends,” she said. “You do not do that.”

The trouble is, food can attract predators.

Rosie’s eggs started hatching Sunday evening. Then, once the ducklings had bonded with her by Monday afternoon, she started moving. One by one, they followed her out of the nest.

The journey to the pond was a community affair, with several people involved, bystanders clapping, and even a sign to warn passing drivers of the procession. The ducklings were then released onto the water with their mother.

But spring was in full swing, and nature can be unpredictable. Half a dozen male ducks spotted Rosie and became aggressive. Some of her helpers threw stones near the males and made loud noises to drive them away.

Naumoff says it’s been an emotional journey.

“Like a mom who has teenagers, who’s ready to get them out of the house!”

Now the ducklings are at the pond, with help from the RoseVilla community, but Naumoff understands their survival is far from certain.

“The trouble is that you’ve got predators,” she said. “You’ve got the eagles that live around here.”

So the next chapter begins for Rosie and her 14 ducklings. It could take them a couple of months to learn to fly, according to Ducks Unlimited. And survival rates before that can be as low as 10%.

Now Josh Fox, Penny Naumoff and other RoseVilla residents will wait for next spring to see whether and where yet another Rosie will nest in their community.