Wildlife rehabbers in hazmat suits, volunteers try to save more waterfowl from the Muddy River, which still reeks of oil

The New England Wildlife Center reports it's now removed about 30 ducks and geese from the Muddy River downstream of Leverett Pond to be driven down to its Weymouth clinic to clean and treat them.

The center said the oil contamination is bad enough that it and state Environmental Police are urging members of the public to stay away from the river and the birds and let the trained professional try to captured them for care.

However, an ad hoc group of Jamaica Plain residents initially ignored the plea, and rescued several birds in an attempt to clean them of the oil, linked to a culvert at the Brook House condo complex in Brookline.

Last night, after Boston Park Rangers came across the river near the Longwood T stop and told the residents - and some would-be rescuers from a wildlife rehab center in Chelmsford - the JP residents managed to get three ducks into a pet carrier, which one of them them then drove out to a suburban veterinary clinic, which not only was open but which had agreed to help try to clean the birds. However, even after being washed, the birds seemed sick, so the resident drove the birds all the way to the Tufts veterinary school's animal hospital in Grafton for care.

Today, residents are continuing to walk along the river bank, looking for affected birds to report to either New England Wildlife, or the state's Mass Wildlife, which also reported to the river today.

New England Wildlife says it it working with state environmental departments and Boston Parks to try to get birds collected for care, a task they said is complicated because the birds can fly away when approached.

Today, numerous absorbent floating booms placed across the river came too late to stop the oil from flowing well downstream even in the sluggish Muddy River. The air in front of 401 Park - the former Landmark Center - was thick with the nauseating smell of oil, and a sheen coated the water:

Oil was continuing to get past a boom placed across the river across from Brookline Coal and Ice:

One of the absorbent booms was put down near a sign still celebrating a project, over several years, to clean up the river and its banks, near Brookline Avenue:

Upstream from where the wood duck sat drenched in oil was a similarly afflicted mallard:

Not all the birds along the river were coated, however. A few feet from the wood duck at the top of this story a mallard paced along the river: