Mr. Placid is a mallard duck with an “angel wing,” a twisted wing that makes it impossible for him to fly. (Provided photo — Colleen O’Neill)

LAKE PLACID — Most ducks migrate further south than Syracuse for the winter — but not Mr. Placid, a Mirror Lake mallard with a broken wing who now calls Webster Pond bird sanctuary in Syracuse his home.

“He had my heart, but boy, it’s been a process,” said Diana Friedlander, a Lake Placid resident who orchestrated Mr. Placid’s rescue.

Friedlander first spotted Mr. Placid on Mirror Lake in June and noticed he had an “angel wing,” which is a deformity in waterfowl in which the last joint of the wing is twisted, making the wing stick out instead of lying against the bird’s body. Birds with an angel wing cannot fly, making it impossible for them to migrate or escape from predators.

Concerned for Mr. Placid’s health, Friedlander began researching his condition and looking for a wildlife conservationist to check up on him. She learned that researchers believe angel wing is caused by an unhealthy diet — the type of diet that results from ducks being fed things like bread by humans. A high carb diet can cause the birds’ feathers to grow rapidly, increasing the weight that pushes down on the birds’ still-developing carpal joints and causing the joint to twist outward. As the bird grows into adulthood, the joint develops unhealthily and eventually becomes permanently deformed. After learning that Mr. Placid’s woes were likely caused by human intervention, Friedlander said that she felt responsible for saving him.

“You can’t take wildlife (from the wild),” she said. “But, my view was, humans did this to him from feeding the ducks and humans should help.”

Mr. Placid, center, is seen swimming shortly after joining his new flock at Webster Pond sanctuary in Syracuse on Sunday, Dec. 24. (Provided photo — Colleen O’Neill)

Friedlander sought the help of Nina Schoch, the executive director of the Adirondack Center for Loon Conservation who is a veterinarian and a state licensed wildlife rehabilitator. Schoch was unable to immediately catch and rehabilitate Mr. Placid, but gave Friedlander advice and told her to keep an eye on Mr. Placid as the seasons began to change.

“It’s amazing where we live and we only have her as a wildlife contact,” Friedlander said of Schoch’s expertise, which is in demand across the North Country. “It would be great to have more of a hotline of people.”

Friedlander followed Mr. Placid all summer.

“Any time I walked around the lake I’d see him,” she said. “But, as time went on and we got colder and colder and the lake started freezing, I would see more of his friends migrating.”

A few weeks ago, as the weather got colder, things came to a head.

“The last really good freeze we had, all the ducks were gone except him. The next morning, the lake froze and I saw him on the lake all by himself,” Friedlander said.

She posted a plea for Mr. Placid on Facebook and he soon amassed a following of local well-wishers. A group got together with animal control and located him close to the Mirror Lake Beach House, the only part of the lake that wasn’t yet completely frozen.

“Luckily, some people got him out,” Friedlander said. “We had been trying for a while, but we didn’t want to upset him.”

Animal control brought Mr. Placid to Schoch, who took care of him and helped Friedlander locate a sanctuary willing to take him in. Since he was wildlife but also had special needs, the sanctuary needed to fit specific requirements such as being an educational organization and having the means to care for a disabled duck. After some trial and error, Friedlander and Schoch landed on Webster Pond, a sanctuary in Syracuse that houses rehabilitated birds and hosts educational programming.

Soon, Mr. Placid was healthy enough to travel to his new home, where there was a spot in the flock for him. He had one more friend to make before his journey was through, though.

“Another wonderful person, Colleen O’Neill … she said she’d be willing to transport him,” Friedlander said. “She was heading back to a place in New Jersey and took a detour.”

On Christmas Eve, O’Neill picked Mr. Placid up from Schoch and drove him down to Webster Pond, where he took to his new home like, well … a duck to water.

“If you ever doubt the good in humanity, visit and talk to the volunteer staff at this sanctuary,” O’Neill wrote on Facebook. “They give many disabled waterfowl a second chance at a very happy life. You can tell by the excited quacks!”

Friedlander said that she hopes Mr. Placid’s story will help educate both locals and tourists about the proper way to treat wildlife.

“I really want people to understand and educate themselves on the danger we can do,” she said. “You know, people come and they have no idea. They’re feeding the ducks.”

Since they are wildlife, the ducks on Mirror Lake are not supposed to be fed. If they must be fed, the Maine Audubon Society recommends offering them something they’d ostensibly eat in the wild, such as lettuce, cabbage or corn. Bread should not be on the menu for waterfowl.

Friedlander said that the best way to show support for Mr. Placid and birds like him is to support conservation and educational organizations like the Adirondack Center for Loon Conservation and Webster Pond with both time and money.

“Animals always have my heart, and I think (Mr. Placid) captivated a lot of people in Lake Placid,” she said.

Past rescues

This isn’t the first time a bird has been rescued from Mirror Lake in December, as winter weather threatened to close off the open water.

In 2018, John Bowe, of AuSable Forks, set up a live trap to capture a snowy goose he named Snowy. He’s not a wildlife rehabilitator, just a good Samaritan who saw the need to save the goose.

Bowe swore it was the same goose he lived trapped in December 2012 and handed over to the Adirondack Wildlife Refuge & Rehabilitation Center in Wilmington.

To lure Snowy to safety in 2018, Bowe set up the trap on the shoreline, next to a picnic table on the tennis court side of the outlet. He draped a blanket over the trap and placed canned corn inside. As Bowe waited on the nearby sidewalk, Snowy walked behind the trap, then back to the front, stopping to make sure there wasn’t anybody nearby.

“Eat the corn, Snowy,” Bowe said. “Eat the corn.”

After Snowy was captured, he put the bird in the back seat of his car and drove it to Wilmington before bringing it to a veterinarian in Plattsburgh upon the recommendation of Adirondack Wildlife Refuge owner/operator Wendy Hall, who said Snowy was injured and had probably been shot.

Wildlife rehabilitators — trained volunteers licensed by the state Department of Environmental Conservation — are the only people legally allowed to receive and treat distressed wildlife.

(Editor/Publisher Andy Flynn contributed to this report.)