"Closest to us is Basil. He's the biggest, and he is a menace," she says, pointing to one of four abandoned ducks she's rescued and brought to her backyard in Edgewater. It's a frigid winter day but the sun is out, and the birds are pecking away at a big bowl of green chickpeas. "You'll see the other ducks being like, 'Gosh, get out of here, Basil,' because he's just kind of a turkey sometimes."
She continues down the line: "Behind Basil is his brother, Pip. Pip used to get bullied, but then he got some balls. He doesn't take any shit from anyone anymore, which is nice. And then you have the red-breasted one, Nigel, and his brother Ozzy."
When Buxton first saw Basil, Pip, Nigel and Ozzy foraging around the shore of Sloan's Lake in the summer of 2022, they were not eating anything as healthy as chickpeas — or much else, for that matter.
"I was living right across the street from the lake at the time," Buxton remembers. "A friend told me that she'd seen some ducks that looked domesticated down there, so I went over to check. And there they were. There were four of them, and they obviously had been dumped by their owner, and they were begging for food scraps from some picnickers."
Buxton took a loaf of bread to the park and started to toss out morsels. The birds were cautious at first, but after a few weeks of her "food festivals," as she calls them, "All I had to do was stand at the edge of the lake and go, 'Hey, guys!' Wherever they were, they'd hear me and be like, 'Our treat mom is here!'" Honey buns, she notes, were particularly tempting.
Then autumn came, and Buxton's work as a duck whisperer intensified.
"It started getting cold, and I knew the lake was going to start freezing over," she says. "Ducks have an oil gland on the back of their butts, and that's what makes their feathers waterproof. When they preen, they're rubbing that gland and waterproofing their feathers. That helps them stay warm in water. But when ducks are super skinny, they can't oil themselves as well. Their circulation is different than ours, so their feet can withstand colder temperatures than our skin can. Still, ducks can get frostbitten feet."
She continues: "Domestic ducks can't fly away when winter comes. They're bred to be heavier, bred for meat, so their bodies are a lot bigger in proportion to their wings than wild ducks' are. That makes domestic ducks more susceptible to predators, mostly foxes and raccoons and hawks. They're prey birds. But their eyesight is a lot better than ours. That's why ducks are always looking up. They can see a hawk or an eagle miles up in the sky.
"Finally I was like, these guys gotta go. I gotta get serious. So I contacted the park rangers at Sloan's Lake, and I let them know that they would probably be seeing me with some elaborate traps, trying to catch these four dumped, domestic ducks. They appreciated the courtesy call."
Catching the birds wasn't easy. When a domestic duck is abandoned in the wild, it becomes skittish and disoriented. Whatever comfort the bird once felt around humans turns to wariness. Most of the time, the ducks Buxton had found wouldn't even come out of the water when she was near. Undeterred, she outfitted herself with techniques and tools. In addition to using standard equipment like waders and nets, she learned to innovate with everything from paddleboards to remote-control speedboats.
"There comes a point," Buxton says, "where you've fed the duck all the mealworms and peas you have, and they're about to go back in the water. At that point, you have them trusting you. But you gotta be fast and just go for it. It's a dance." That dance is one Buxton has mastered.
Buxton's most unintentionally hilarious duck-saving scheme was setting up a soccer net and trying to chase the birds until they were corralled inside. Ultimately, though, the ducks were so malnourished that a generous scattering of food was enough to lure the last of them to safety.
Then came the question of where to put them. Few animal shelters in Denver will accept ducks, and even those that do — like the Denver Animal Shelter, operated by the Denver Department of Public Health & Environment — have extremely limited resources. "For me, shelters were the last resort," Buxton says. "Shelter space is precious. I'd prefer to keep as much of that space open as possible for people who have no other options. And even then, the shelter would have to try to adopt the ducks out. There was no way I could make sure they were going to a good place."
For Buxton, there was only one alternative: She took the ducks home.
The avian flu has landed
Buxton's flock of four is a relatively new presence in her life, but ducks in general are not. As a girl in rural Brighton, she was a member of 4-H, and ducks were among the many animals she grew up learning about and caring for. That love of living things never left her.Her house is more or less animal heaven — and a legal haven, since the City of Edgewater has issued a fifty-dollar-a-year permit for Buxton to keep her ducks there. In addition to that waddling mob of Basil, Pip, Nigel and Ozzy, she owns a fluffy orange cat named Tig and an enormous tortoise named Lucy who commands a bedroom of her own in Buxton's house.
"When we first got the ducks," says Buxton, a server at the Corner Office downtown, "Tig would chase them around the yard. Then it was the other way around. Now the ducks are more likely to go after Tig. They do get kind of territorial."
Being territorial is one instinct that even domestic ducks retain. But beyond a few vestigial survival mechanisms such as that, domestic ducks are pretty much helpless in the wild. When raised for poultry and eggs by farmers with training, resources and at least a streak of ethics, domestic ducks have just one main predator to worry about: humans themselves.
Cruelty, however, can take many forms.
"The majority of dumped ones, especially in the spring, are just from people who saw a cute baby duck at a feed store and was like, 'Let's do it.' It's just an impulse buy," Buxton says. "It's never-ending. People are constantly just picking up animals and not thinking about the long term, you know? You need to have space for them. You need to have predator-proof housing. People don’t realize how fast they grow, the care they need, the messes they make. They’re an eight-to-ten-year commitment. When reality sets in, ducks end up in lakes and ponds all over.
"Can we just say that all animals are a huge commitment?" she adds. "This is not something new."
"It’s not uncommon for people to drop off their domestic ducks to park properties despite it being illegal to do so," agrees Holly Batchelder, Denver Parks & Recreation spokesperson. "In most cases, these animals do not survive in the wild after being domesticated. This seems to happen more after holidays, especially Easter, when people buy ducks as pets and end up not being able to care for them or just don’t want to care for them anymore. So they drop them off in a Denver park and expect them to survive."
Bird sanctuaries are unsuitable for domestic ducks; after all, these places are full of wild birds, which can be very territorial. But there's another issue that's now making people shy away from accepting rescue ducks: the recent resurgence of avian flu
In 2024, nine of the ten avian flu cases in Colorado were from human exposure to farm chickens, three at a poultry farm in the northeastern part of the state.
On February 13, the Denver Department of Health & Environment issued a warning about avian flu, advising people not to interact with sick or dead birds. The signs of an infected bird include "tremors, lack of coordination, swelling around the head, diarrhea, lack of energy or movement and gasping for air," the department warned, adding that like most viruses, avian flu spreads easily by inhaling or touching the pathogen.
"There are no cases of duck-to-human transmission of avian flu in Colorado," says Kristin Richmann, spokesman for the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment's Office of Emergency Preparedness and Response. But that hasn't stopped shelters from going on high alert.
Although Humane Colorado (formerly the Denver Dumb Friends League) has historically sheltered ducks, it no longer is. "Due to the increased prevalence of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), we can no longer accept livestock birds, including chickens, ducks and turkeys," the organization says.
As Buxton continues rescuing domesticated ducks, she's had to take special action. "Part of my rescue process is quarantining the ducks in a small pen and reaching out to a vet," Buxton says. "It's sad, but if they do test positive for avian flu, they would have to be euthanized, and also all of the ducks in the same home."
The duck stops here
"These are the first ones I ever rescued," Buxton says as she sits at the picnic table in her backyard, watching Basil, Pip, Nigel and Ozzy frolic in the sun. "So of course I kept them. But since then I've rescued oodles more and rehomed them. Sometimes I'll have a couple ducks that'll stay a couple weeks. Sometime for a month. However long it takes."
Running a duck-adoption service was not Buxton's initial concept. But in 2023 she became a moderator for a Facebook group called Colorado Domestic Duck Rescue Network, which helps find new homes for dumped ducks while offering advice, sharing resources and posting information. The group is also a space for tipsters to inform members about potential cases of duck abandonment. The more of these tips Buxton received, the more she followed up. And once she saw a duck in distress, there was no turning back.
"When I rehome a duck, there is a vetting process," Buxton says. "The person has to have the right housing, the right water source, and things like that. Kind of the standard adoption stuff, just like you're adopting a car or a dog. I don't just do a handoff. I usually just volunteer to drive them out to check out their new home. Even if it's two hours away, that's okay. I need to say goodbye to them anyway. And if the people wind up not wanting the ducks, I say, 'Give them back to me.'"
Buxton acknowledges that the ideal solution isn't rescue or adoption. It's prevention. But that's also the most difficult.
"I wish I could put up signs that said, 'Don't dump ducks,' but when did a sign ever stop anyone from doing anything? It would be like a 'no-skateboarding' sign," she says. "I don't know what the answer is. Educating people, I guess. And that's why we have a Facebook group where everyone can come together and be like, 'Hey, I'm moving next month. I need to get rid of ten ducks.' That's totally normal and totally fine. But then you have a thousand other duck owners who are like, 'I'll toss these birds away.'
"People are only concerned about what's in front of them and what's best for them," she continues. "It's a world that lacks empathy. And I think we, right now more than ever, see it all over the place. Just people lacking empathy for living things, for people, for humanity. I think they look down on people that are just trying to do good things, you know? Like, 'Why save a duck? Why would that be important?' Well, it's important to that living thing. It's important to our ecosystem. What if everyone decided to dump their ducks at Sloan's Lake? Like if everybody just decided, 'Who cares?' Then where would we be?"
Buxton is now in the process of making her rescue mission official.
"I'm applying for nonprofit status," she admits. "As a credible charity, I would be able to take donations and do fundraisers. I want to throw a 5K race for ducks at Sloan's Lake where everyone can run and get a T-shirt and contribute to duck rescue. It's not like I need thousands and thousands of dollars every month. I just want to be able to spread awareness and to provide for the ducks that we're trying to get."
At some point, she even plans to create her own duck sanctuary. "I want to buy a little piece of land for all the ducks I can save," she says. "That's kind of where I'm at. I've been looking into it, but of course it's really expensive."
For the time being, though, Buxton's backyard is sanctuary enough.
"You're being bad boy," she says, scolding Basil as he runs after Nigel, then bodychecks him. "See, that's pretty much the game right there. Basil chases Nigel, then tackles him, and then you'll see Ozzy try and protect Nigel. But Ozzy isn't helping him today. He's not having any of it, oh my goodness."
Buxton thinks that Ozzy and Nigel are about two and a half years old. "I watched them mature into their adult colors right after I saved them," she says. "Basil and Pip are just a little bit older. They're getting better with mating season as they age. The first two years I had them, it was just chaos. I had the two pairs separated because as soon as they'd see each other in the morning, they'd run up to the fence and start talking shit. It'd just be violence.
"Drake jail is a real thing," she continues. "Like with Basil, he is on his way to drake jail here pretty soon. When mating season starts, he's gonna be a stinker. Males get super naughty. But he hasn't quite gotten violent enough yet to where I've had to separate him. Nigel, he's the pretty boy, so everyone loves him. But you can see that the back of his neck is kind of ruffled, and he could start to get worse wounds. I'll have to section off an area or just divide the yard in half so that Basil can't get to Nigel. That's drake jail."
Once ducks grow past duckling-hood, it's too late for them to bond to a human, Buxton says; you have to hold them as babies to properly forge a deep connection. That may be technically true, but it's hard to believe she doesn't have a solid relationship with this flock of four.
As they honk and flutter their flightless wings around the yard — "Male ducks have that raspy quack," she notes, "like they've been smoking for fifteen years" — the ducks respond to Buxton as if she's their mother. Or maybe their odd, featherless cousin.
"Ducks are super smart," she says. "They recognize voices. They have distinct personalities. In relation to maybe other domestic animals, I would say they're as smart as dogs. People know cartoon ducks. They know Daffy and Donald, but that's all.
"How can you not love a duck? I love them. I do," she adds. "But I feel like everybody loves ducks. They just don't really know them yet."
