A chaotic morning turned into a heartwarming rescue when Tykira Marine, running late for an international flight, spotted a distressed mother duck beside a flooded motorway in Auckland, New Zealand, and sprang into action.

Marine and her friend Eva had just endured a delayed hotel checkout due to a missing vehicle. As they drove toward the airport, they noticed the duck sitting alone with only one duckling. Upon closer inspection, Marine heard faint chirping from inside a roadside drain. With no time to spare, she grabbed scissors and her phone, determined to document and resolve what she called “a regularly occurring problem for ducklings.”

After scraping away built-up grime, Marine pried open the drain and rescued the trapped ducklings one by one. To avoid startling the mother duck into traffic, she gently tossed the last duckling toward its siblings. The mother immediately followed, reuniting the family as they waddled off into nearby bushes.

Having a bit of a ‘burnt toast’ morning, our check out was delayed by over an hour because the concierge lost my vehicle some how.. running late to an international flight I spotted a mama duck sitting looking distressed beside the motorway. I asked Eva my friend and passenger if she was comfortable with me pulling over to check it out, and on closer inspection she only had one duckling. I could hear the ducklings chirping from down in the drain, so ran back to the car for my scissors ✂️ and grabbed my phone ! Perfect time to document a regularly occurring problem for ducklings. It took quite a while of scraping the built up filth off, but eventually I got it open, got in and got all the babies out! The mama had fled a little further up the motorway, so as not to spook her into to danger I nabbed her one remaining baby and threw him over with his siblings, to which mama immediately followed and reunited the whole fam off into the bushes! Was the sweetest, most perfect rescue I’ve ever been a part of. In hindsight I probably should have sacrificed my kicks but they were pretty fresh white reeboks