How to Rescue a Frozen Duck

My attempt to save a wild animal from a frosty fate — and the lessons I learned for next time

Last Saturday, I went for a walk along the Lake Michigan shoreline. I try to do this at least once a week even when the weather is less than ideal. On this particular day, the reel feel temperatures were in the negatives, which served as a painful reminder that spring is still several chilly weeks away.

I wore my balaclava, tall wool socks, wool sweater, gloves, scarf, hat, heavy jeans, and my warmest jacket. Even when you’re dressed for the weather, the wind still finds a way to bore itself beneath your layers, or just makes your face hurt so freakin’ bad that you have to call it quits after 20 minutes.

This was one of those face-hurt days. On my walk, I took a detour past the marina because it’s an area more protected from the winds coming off Lake Michigan. You still feel the searing cold on your cheeks, but the insulated harbor makes the wind is slightly more tolerable.

Outside the marina, I saw one of the strangest winter phenomena I’ve ever witnessed.

Lots of ducks were swimming around in the aerated water by the docks. But one — a female red-breasted merganser — had a block of ice sealed around its beak.

The poor thing’s face looked like a popsicle. She could swim just fine, but kept flinging her head around, trying to shake off her ice muzzle.

I didn’t know what to do besides stand there and film.

Part of me toyed with the idea of trying to grab her from the water. If I could hold her beak in my warm hands for a few seconds, the ice would probably melt enough to pop off her face.

But every time I tried to get closer, she swam away, as smart birds do. There was also no way I’d be going in the water. I didn’t know how deep it was, and I was in no condition to get my shoes and pants soaked when it was well below freezing and my car was at least a 15 minute walk away. Plus I kept thinking about bird flu and the likelihood that the merganser could be sick.

So I took as many photos and videos as I could before leaving the marina. It was getting to the point where I was too cold to stay outside much longer.

From there, I walked over to my local bookstore. I was chatting with the owner, a friend of mine, when I thought to show them the picture of the half-frozen bird.

“Looks like that bird needs some help,” they said. Well, that helper couldn’t be me. But maybe someone else would come to the rescue?

So I looked up the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources website to find some contacts. They had a directory of wildlife rehabilitation orgs by county. To my surprise, there weren’t any wildlife rehab clinics in my county listed on the site. I called the DNR hotline to see if they could recommend someone anyway.

A male red-breasted merganser that I saw at the lake a different time.

The employee on the phone transferred me to a volunteer wildlife rehab group in a nearby county. I waited until their line went to voicemail. “Until the end of February, we are not taking any new patients,” the answering machine said. No new patients? Did that include wild birds that needed spontaneous help?

I left a voicemail anyway, hoping someone would return my call. What were the odds that a volunteer in another county would be available to help a half-frozen bird de-thaw in the middle of winter?

The whole situation got me wondering how often birds fall victim to this type of condition. I’ve taken many winter walks to watch the ducks, and yet this is the first time I’ve ever seen a beak freeze over.

The only detailed article I could find was from a community newspaper in Toronto. In it, the columnist talks about their experience seeing ducks with frozen beaks during a particularly bad cold snap in 2020. They helped Canada geese and mallards get the ice muzzles off their faces by placing corn on the ground to peck at. That pecking motion helped crack the ice without a human volunteer having to lay a hand on the birds.

What an amazing idea! Mallards, swans, and geese will gladly snack on veggies, so taking advantage of their desire to eat was a great, no-contact way to free their faces. (The author also described capturing some of the geese and warming them up inside a car, but did so alongside the help of professional wildlife rehabilitators.)

The problem with the bird I saw at the marina is that it is not the kind that will peck at the ground, as far as I’m concerned. Mergansers mostly eat fish, typically diving underneath the water to grab some grub. Rarely do I ever see them on land, and it’s not common for them to be seen eating scraps thrown by humans. They’re skittish and not the kinds of birds that flock to you when you throw bread from the shore. Though maybe it would have helped if I had some fish with me?

Male and female red breasted mergansers that I saw on a different walk.

I was deep in thought when I saw a text pop up on my phone screen. “Is the bird out in the water or can you safely reach it?” No introduction, but I knew right away that this was one of the volunteers at the wildlife rehab org.

Sadly, they weren’t able to come down to the marina because they recently had surgery. Plus, the fact that the bird was in the water complicated things. The volunteer told me that their org generally doesn’t do water rescues. Darn.

I knew I was at the end of the line. There wasn’t anyone else I knew to contact who could help the poor merganser. I’d even talked with another bookstore employee about local wildlife groups, and it sounds like there just aren’t any others located nearby. The volunteers try to do what they can, but it’s an unfortunate fact that there just aren’t enough wildlife rehabilitators to help every injured animal.

I don’t know what ultimately happened to that merganser with the frozen beak, but I hope it was able to make it through the day because it got warmer outside as the week went on, so the ice surely would’ve melted. It’s also possible that the bird was able to shake the ice off herself by warming up her beak in her feathers. Or maybe she sat in the sun for a while and it loosened up. I do realize that she could have died too from not being able to eat anything.

Whatever the case, I feel like I learned some small but valuable nuggets of info about wildlife rehab from this experience. I saved the local volunteer group’s number in my phone, so I know who to call next time. And if I see a half-frozen bird in the water again, I’m going to try to toss it some food on the concrete so maybe it can crack the ice off its beak by itself.

I couldn’t be a helper this time, but now I have some ideas for what to do next time.

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