Wood Ducks from Dump to Jump
Posted By Dwight on July 22, 2010
Last year I put up six wood duck boxes, and early this spring I went out to check on them, clean them out and set up a few new boxes. Wood ducks are generally shy and they usually nest in tree cavities, so I feel lucky if I get a good view of one.
In two of the existing boxes I found fresh eggs, and within weeks there were two pair of wood ducks parading past our house daily.
I thought it was very late in the season, they should be brooding by now, maybe the nest boxes are all full? That weekend I made more boxes, and put one up right in front of my house and another at my neighbors. Within a week we had a duck in our box and about two weeks later our neighbors had “tenants” as well.
The drakes hung around for a while, and the hens were very discrete. We rarely saw her enter or leave the house. One day I noticed the drake sitting on the fence, and the hen sitting on the house, just hanging out. It was kind of unusual.
After a while I noticed there was a second hen, a hooded merganser, who flew up and stuck her head in the house. Our wood duck, on the roof, forced this interloper down into the drink. Clearly the merganser was interested in taking over the nest. They jockeyed for position, up on the roof, around the water, over on the fence, the ladies doing all the negotiating, a peck or hiss now and then, with the drake just staring straight ahead.
The turf war heats up
The male jumps off the fence
Finally the wood duck hen went in the house turned right around and sat half in and half out blocking the entrance. The hooded merganser was beat, and she flew away. Seconds later the wood duck hen took off and the drake followed.
I had not checked the nest for a while, so I decided to go have a look. As I set up my ladder I bumped the duck house and a third hen came flying out of the house! Our duck was sitting on her eggs the whole time. No wonder the other hen did not stay in the house for long, she probably got a nip in the butt from the duck on the eggs!
When I opened the house there were 24 eggs, fresh and clean as any you might see at the grocery store. A typical clutch is 10-15 eggs, so we had at least two ducks “dumping” in our nest. While not ideal conditions, our hen hatched out 9 ducklings from the batch.
My neighbor’s eggs hatched about a week later. They had a dozen in the nest, and I just happened to see six fluff balls right after they jumped, following their mama on a maiden voyage toward the lily pads.
Comments