Ducks’ Pal Needs Care Now Faithful Feeder’s Failing Health Leaves A Gap For Hundreds Of Fowl

Hundreds of ducks count on Jason Childress.

Daily, they wait for him at the meeting place on the Spokane River in northeast Spokane. They quack and flap and wobble around, looking for Childress to cross Upriver Drive with 20 gallons of feed.

They listen for his voice. He calls them when he’s on his way.

But after eight years, Childress, 72, can’t make it to dinner anymore. Struggling with Parkinson’s disease, he moved last week to Murray, Idaho, to live with relatives.

Leaving the ducks behind broke his heart, relatives said. He’s worried they’ll starve to death without him.

“There’s like 2,000 of them, you know,” said Childress, a retired Kaiser crane operator. “We have to keep feeding all those starving, hungry ducklings.”

His son, Gentry, promised he would - for now. But the 28-year-old doesn’t have time to visit the swarms of ducks on a regular basis like his father did. In the past week, he’s only been to the feeding spot twice.

It was not pretty.

“They came right up to the car wanting that grain,” Gentry Childress said, surprised by their boldness. “They followed me across the street and over to the water. They’re demanding little guys.”

Gentry Childress said he’s worried more about his father’s peace of mind than the ducks’ future. If someone doesn’t keep feeding them, his dad will fret more over their health than his own, Gentry Childress said.

“He thinks about them all the time,” he said. “I sort of just wish they’d fly south for the winter.”

Not likely, according to officials with the state Fish and Wildlife Department.

Word spreads fast in the wild when there’s an easy meal - especially one that’s been so reliable so long, said Madonna Luers, a department spokeswoman.

“He set up a candy store for them,” she said. “By now, they’re conditioned. He’s probably got generations of ducks conditioned to go to him for food.”

But Luers said the ducks still are able to find their own meals and won’t starve because Childress closed shop. In fact, this year’s mild weather makes it a good time to taper off the feedings, she said.

“If someone doesn’t pick up the ball, they’ll eventually go somewhere else,” Luers said. “I can’t say we won’t lose a few, though. He probably brought a lot of ducks through some tough winters doing what he did.”

Childress thinks so.

When he first started the feedings, only a couple hundred ducks showed up, he said. At his last visit, he guessed more than 1,500 hungry guests arrived.

It now takes four buckets of grain each day to get the job done, he said. Childress got the food by driving to granaries in Spangle, Rockford and Mead, where he scooped up spilled grain and loaded it into his car.

Then, he stored the feed in barrels in his backyard on East Ermina.

Gentry Childress said there’s about 1,000 pounds still out there, which he plans to let the ducks finish up.

“But then I have to quit,” he said, tossing out a bucketful to hundreds of wet, outstretched necks. “I can’t keep doing this.”

He spread the grain out evenly on the shore to keep fights from breaking out - one of his father’s many feeding tips.

“The big fat greedy ones will take it all if you don’t,” the elder Childress warned. “And try to go before noon. They get really hungry if you show up late.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 color photos

MEMO: Cut in Spokane edition.