In the first hour after a Khaki Campbell duck escapes, search small, low, and quiet. A Campbell is a light, active duck that cannot fly far but can slip under a gate, vanish into a ditch, and freeze motionless in cover while people stride past calling at head height. Unlike a sheep or a horse, it will not be standing in the open waiting to be spotted. Your first hour is a ground-level search of the hiding places within a short distance of the pen, done slowly enough that the duck stays put or reveals itself, ending with a gentle herding catch rather than a grab.
Seal the pen and count the flock
Seal the pen first, because the gap that let one Campbell out will let the rest of the flock wander while your back is turned. Push a board, brick, or temporary panel against the hole, check the gate latch and any place the wire lifts at ground level, and count the ducks that remain so you know whether you are searching for one bird or several. Note the direction of the escape if you can: feathers on wire, wet footprints on a path, or droppings outside the fence are real evidence, and a Campbell that left toward water is telling you where to look first.
Search the hiding places in rings
Search outward from the pen in slow rings, checking the places a small duck actually uses. Look under shrubs, trailers, and stacked timber, along ditch banks and hedge bottoms, inside open sheds and greenhouses, and in long grass the bird can press itself into. Work at crouch height, parting cover gently, and pause often to listen, because a separated Campbell may answer its flock mates or rustle when you pass close. Check the nearest pond, stream, or even a neighbour's water feature early and thoroughly: Campbells make for water instinctively, and a duck that reaches a pond is safer from predators but far harder to catch, so knowing it is there changes your plan from searching to patient retrieval.
Herd gently toward a corner
Catch a Campbell by herding, never by chasing or diving. A duck run hard across a garden overheats, panics into fences, and can injure a leg or wing, and Campbells are quick enough to dodge a lunging person all morning. Instead, use two or three calm helpers as a slow, wide wall, arms slightly out, walking the bird toward a fence corner, an open shed, or a carrier with one side blocked, and let it walk in as the space narrows. A long-handled net or a large towel dropped gently over a cornered bird finishes the job. Keep dogs shut away throughout, even friendly ones, because a dog's stare alone can send a loose duck into full flight from the one safe spot it had chosen.
Ask the neighbours who matter
Ask the right neighbours early, the ones with ponds, ditches, dense gardens, or greenhouses, because a Campbell's first hour rarely carries it beyond a few properties. Give them the useful description: a small khaki-brown duck, whether it is a hen with a loud quack or a quieter drake, any leg band, and the request that matters most, which is to phone you and keep eyes on it rather than chase it into the road. Check any report quickly but calmly, and if dusk is approaching, prioritise getting the duck in before dark, when foxes and other night hunters make a loose duck's odds far worse than its odds at noon. An alert sent through KinsLe's Lost Pet Alert System in that first hour gets pond owners nearby checking their water for your Khaki Campbell while you work the hedges.