Dramatic Rescue at Fourlanesend

Mrs The Millbrooker has once again been doing her animal rescue heroine act; long time readers might recall the swan rescue story of yore.


We went for a pootle around Tregonhawke Cliff, returning over Trenninow and thence to Fourlanesend.

Needless to say, the views en-route were as lovely as always. Here's Rame Head from Tregonhawke Cliff.

It was on the last lap on the road between Fourlanesend and Millpool Head that Mrs The MIllbrooker spotted three little stripy dots running as fast as their little legs would carry them; three shelduck ducklings.

Now these little fellows were way outside of normal shelduck habitat (tidal estuary); how they got there is anybody's guess. But as all locals will know drivers do tend to let rip up and down that stretch of road and although the ducklings are shown in the shot above on the footpath, shelduck are not renowned for their road sense and they were straying into the road as often as not. Their frantic parents kept flying in circles above and then landing in the hope of guiding their offspring to safety before being forced to take off again by a speeding car.

Mrs The Millbrooker hurried on ahead to catch up with our potential road kill victims...

...flagging the traffic to slow down and explaining what was going on to each driver as they were brought to a halt or at least a crawl by her waving from the centre of the road.


Happily, after a couple of hundred metres, the ducklings huddled themselves into a hedgerow close to a gate leading to the fields on the west of the road from where the adult ducks could herd their flightless and fluffy toddlers to a degree of safety.

How they got to be in the road at Fourlanesend in the first place is anyone's guess. Nonetheless we got a happy outcome and, as they say, "cometh the hour, cometh the Mrs The Millbrooker."