Ducks and their ducklings are spending the night in a car park in Thirsk rather than Cod Beck.
It’s the third year that this has happened and nobody knows the reason why.
A stoat has been spotted by the water but there may be something in the beck too, like a pike, which is making the mother ducks nervous and each night they are moving the little ones from the water to the cobbles.
Looking after them is the job of the Thirsk Duck Wardens and one of them is Emma Jayne Hutchings who has been speaking to YorkMix Radio.
Emma said: “We’re not 100% sure what is actually causing an issue for the ducks. For the past 20 odd years they have nested wherever they’ve nested. They’ve roosted, settled, had their babies, but not felt the need to move away from the beck.
“Unfortunately, three years ago, we had them decide that it wasn’t safe at night, and that they believed moving to one of the parking bays in the market square in Thirsk was a really good option for them.
“We are a group of volunteers, all local to Thirsk. Our founding member Jody put a call out to us three years ago. Unfortunately, the the walk that the ducks do up into the market square is is on quite a busy road, and the mother duck at the time and three of the ducklings were all run over.
“So Jodie felt we needed to do something. She put a post on our Facebook group and said, would it be possible to give a bit of time to escort the ducks up along the road, and make sure that they’re not disturbed until all the pubs close and the town becomes quiet again.
“So, that’s what we did. We put cones out in a couple of the parking spaces on an evening, and we try and direct the ducks to them. But if there’s dogs walking past and they feel slightly unsafe, then they will bob underneath one of the cars nearby.”
This will be a regular job now until the autumn and Thirsk Ducks group is looking for new volunteers to help. If you can spend some time looking after them then join the Facebook group and send Thirsk Ducks a message.
You can learn more about their work in an interview on David Dunning’s Sunday Late Show this weekend (Sunday 26 July) at 10pm.
Emma thanked local people for being really supportive: “We get a lot of help from from local businesses, whether that’s teas and coffees or filling the trough up that we have for water for the ducks.
“Some of the local businesses will move our cones for us if nobody’s available of the morning prior to sort of the market square getting busy, so we’re really lucky.”
