Elizabeth Dixon was puttering in her front yard flower patch one Monday morning in early June when she witnessed an amazing spectacle. It was a duck like no duck she’d ever seen before — a rusty-brown colored bird with a black belly, pink feet and bright orange beak.
The odd duck was trailed by a troop of 10 or so tiny ducklings. Each 4-inches-tall, downy hatchling was black-and-white checkered, like a chessboard. The baby ducks waddled in a line. “That phrase ‘ducks in a row’ is a real thing,” Dixon said.
Trouble was, Dixon immediately realized there was a problem. She lives on a street in Lakeview that runs right near the Orleans Canal, and it seemed to her that the mother duck and her hatchlings probably intended to reach the canal water…