Cops Stop Traffic Every Year To Get Duckling Family Home

For reasons known only to one mother duck - and possibly guided by all that greenery and shade at low, low prices - this beloved bird always makes her spring nest at the Atlantic Superstorein Prince Edward Island, Canada.

Right smack in middle of the garden display.

The duck, affectionately named Lucy, shows up every year, moving into her temporary digs for a couple of weeks to nest.

"She's hidden in the tall trees," Shelley Doyle, a manager at the garden center, told local newspaper The Guardian when Lucy arrived in early June this year. Staff members of the center, she added, protect Lucy by posting signs saying the trees around her nest have been sold.

And when her babies hatch, Lucy ventures out again, crossing a bustling intersection, past the nearby Burger King, across a field and into a boggy marsh.

All with a gaggle of newborn ducklings in tow.

This is Lucy's annual odyssey. And it's such a time-honored tradition in Charlottetown, locals give this freshly minted family a police escort to their summer home.

"We needed to assist with traffic as her and her ducklings crossed University Avenue, probably one of the busiest intersections in Charlottetown by the Burger King, and then on to the marsh in the back of University Avenue," Sean Coombs, of the Charlottetown Police Service, told CBC News.

"We don't mind assisting at all, you know, get her and her ducklings across safely and it all worked out," he said.

Godspeed, Lucy. See you next year.