Jules Brownwell was the first East County resident to notice something amiss on her mid-August morning bike ride down the newly opened 44th Avenue East extension.
A black-bellied whistling duck standing on top of a drainage grate just east of the bridge that crosses Interstate 75 didn’t seem quite right. When Brownwell looked down into the grate, she spotted a flock of seven chirping ducklings.
She called the fire department, Manatee County 311 and an animal rescue, but couldn’t get any help, so she called her husband George Stroberg…