The RIVERDALE REVIEW • Thursday, August 12, 2010


Lucky duck finds haven in Riverdale By PAULETTE SCHNEIDER Spot, a Muscovy duck mom, appeared


concerned as she watched her seven ducklings wiggle through a wire fence and into the neighbor’s yard for the third time in a half hour. “See? She’s an- noyed,” said Harriet Fritz, whose North Riverdale family home has for the past 40 years been a sanctuary for some very fortunate birds—who became pets instead of poultry. A newcomer, Spot has dramatically


changed the household dynamic. She is the first-ever resident hen who’s decided to raise a family. Unlike her cohorts over the years, who have gone through the motions of nesting but never for more than a few minutes per sitting, Spot pads her nests with feathers and devotes whatever time it takes to develop her eggs into chicks. Named for the bright-red featherless


patch surrounding each eye, Spot is the first Muscovy in the yard. The others have been Pekins, a domestic species not known for competent mothering. Their survival depends upon hatcheries. And it’s Pekin, not Peking. The former


is the species name for the common do- mestic duck, with its fluffy white feathers and matching orange bill and legs, popu- larized long ago by Disney’s Donald and more recently by the Aflac mascot. The latter is the culinary term for a common menu item featuring the gentle creatures roasted, sliced and wrapped in some sort of pancake. To Harriet Fritz, her husband, Jay, and


her sister, Ethel Benedick—and to Harriet and Ethel’s parents before them—the birds are family pets. “We saved them from the table,” Fritz said. Fella, Bella and Stella, the current


Pekins, were rescued from a New Jersey poultry market. The three-year-olds com- prise the third group of ducks to serve the community in this Tyndall Avenue location. Their vocalizations and muddy antics are soothing to grownups passing by on their way to or from work and to children getting on or off the school bus that stops at the corner. Few can resist the urge to greet the


trio—and more recently, Spot and her brood—as they go about their business in a fenced-in yard designed for their com- fort and security. They have an enclosed wooden shelter, an insulated plastic igloo, kiddie pools continually filled with fresh water, all the calcium-enriched duck food and lettuce they can eat, and grassy areas replete with worms and bugs to snack on and puddles to splash in. During winter months, the fresh drink-


ing water supply is kept from freezing with a battery-run heater. For the chicks, two aluminum roasting pans served as pools. Sometimes all seven climbed into a pan at once. Spot and Fella's first Pekin-Muscovy


hybrid sibling group, born last Rosh Ha- shanah, was scooped up and delivered to the New Paltz home of a neighbor’s brother, where they will live happily ever after as pets. Unable to reproduce, they will sidestep family obligations. The current brood came about when


the person who ordinarily collects the daily yield of eggs was on vacation, and Spot took the opportunity to nurture a clutch. This time, when she waddled out of hiding followed by a line of ducklings, it was less of a surprise. “This group is going up to Greenwood Lake,” Fritz said.


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