Hiya guys and gals,,,,,

I am looking for a bit of advice please. Urgently.
I was walking along a footpath and stumbled across a lone duckling. It's one of the smallest wee things I've seen.

I watched him stumble across the path and fall down a small embankment towards a tiny trickle of a brook. He seemed to get up and shake it off, then hide under a rock. (Its along Dorenbach Promenade in Neubad, Basel, if you know the area,,,,,,)

I waited (out the way) for a good 45mins to see if there were any parents around. None came forth to claim their offspring.
About 200m there is a large pond with lots of ducks/moorhens and coots etc.

I've left him cowering behind a rock under some grass so he is well hidden.

Any ideas what I should do, if anything???
I'm sure the duckling would appreciate any help.

(I've not touched or handled him, just made sure a dog didn't eat him.)

I'd say you have two options.

1: Let Nature run its course.

2. Take it home, create a magnificent artificial pond for it, and keep it as a pet that will be thankful for saving its life from the jaws/beak of a predator.

Both are sure to be met with equal criticism.

We recently took a stray duckling we found in the cellar (courtesy of our one eyed cat) who was fine and not injured to a local animal rescue. That's probably your best bet!

Lovely that you care! Maybe take a cardboard box, with a towel or something in the bottom, to pick up the duckling. You could then take the duckling back to the pond where all the other ducks are and let it out onto the pond, in the hope that it might be recognised. Good luck

For advice as to the best way to handle this, why not contact either of the Basel Tierschutz organizations?

Your best bet is probably Tierschutz Beider Basel, as they deal with a wider range of issues:
http://www.tbb.ch/

But you could always also ask the Tierschutzbund Basel - if they can't help (they deal mostly in dogs and cats) they could point you in the right direction:

http://www.tierschutzbund.ch/start.php

Awesome.
Thanks for the links and advice.

I've gone back again and its still there, so I think I'll do something about him. Poor little fella.
Thanks again!!

I've moved this to Pet's Corner. I appreciate that this duckling isn't a pet (yet! ) but the information and links are Pet relevant both to pet owners and animal rescuers.

Having found a couple of lone ducklings since I've been here, I've always decided to let nature take it's course. The main reason is that they are not domesticated animals, and also my experience of trying to reintroduce one to it's mother again. Back where I used to live there were only one pair of ducks that had produced young, and I found one of the ducklings alone. The parents were nowhere in sight. My GF at the time insisted that we take the little thing home and try to find the parents the next day as it was already getting dark. The next day we found the parents and released the duckling. However the mother rejected the duckling by chasing it off a number of times.

Whether this was a result of the mother simply forgetting, or whether it was because this duckling had a human scent after being handled, I don't know. But what I did learn that day is to let nature take it's course, as we'd probably put that little thing through far more stress than if it had been quickly snaffled by a pike, or bird of prey.

It's tough, but IMO it's for the best.

Buy some oranges.

It is a myth that human scent can lead to rejection as most birds have a poor sense of smell!

Mr Local Lion Impersonator knocked a baby bird out of a nest a couple of years ago, the poor wee thing was hopping around and its parents were attacking the cat. We put it back in the nest, it was rejected out again and hopped around for about a day until nature took it's course... sad to watch.

Yep - http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/babybird.asp

Link also offers tips on how to treat the animal.