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First Wood Duck Pair for 2011

13 years ago

Looked out at our backyard pond and saw a male waiting patiently under one of the boxes-Ten minutes later, out flew a female. I doubt that there is an egg, but will look later today and see for sure.

Spring has arrived.

S. E. Michigan

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Comments (13)

kendra2003
13 years ago
You are so lucky to have a pond and wood ducks. I think they are just so beautiful. They have been reported at a local conservation area, and other people I talk with there have seen them. But I've been walking there for 30 years and have yet to see a wood duck. Best wishes for a productive nesting season.
ginni77
13 years ago
I was lucky enough to see a mama wood duck and her babies last spring and I'm going to go back this spring to see if I can see dad too...they are beautiful!!! How neat to have a pond. You must get to see lots of wildlife.
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Thanks! I seldom use a tripod, but since I was in the car, I just balanced the Canon 400mm lens against the window. My Canon EOS 40D needs strong light from behind and to be close to work well, so I was glad the Buffleheads came as close as they did..about 40 feet away while fighting. As to why they were fighting, Buffleheads are monogamous, at least for a few years at a time, so apparently the newcomer male was defending his mate of choice that year. Perhaps she'd not yet made up her own mind because she kept approaching the single male, bobbing her head, and he'd bob back. Whenever he noticed this the first male would attack and drive the single male away, even though the single male kept trying to continue his foraging dives between attacks. These sea ducks are among the last to migrate to their breeding grounds in Canada, where they use Northern Flicker and Pileated Woodpecker holes by small lakes (link to Bufflehead pdf files http://seaduckjv.org/infoseries/buff_sppfactsheet.pdf ) For the Wood Ducks, I crawled into an old slab wood lean-to blind and balanced the lens against a cross bar. They are very jittery and I've not been able to sneak up on them since
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Kendra, the ducks are fairly shy and will leave the backyard if we go towards the pond. When the females starts to sit, she stays in the box, even if we mow the lawn right at the box, but if you open the door to her box, she will be off and not come back for several hours or more. We have two boxes, but a starling has scared them by sitting in the door to one of the boxes, so all three females that are laying are putting their eggs into one box. I think I have scared off the starling, but it will take awhile for them to try that box again. There was one egg in that box and I transferred it to the other box. Now we have twelve eggs in that box and none in the other box. We have put a camera in each box. So far the females have gone in and left before another enters the box but in past years we have seen some nasty fight when two females both get into the box at one time. Here is video taken in 2010--It was Fathers day. In this video you may see that one duck does not make it. He finally jumped after about 20 min. Mom was still waiting for him. Here is a link that might be useful: video 2010
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deanie1
13 years ago
How cool, Connie-k! Our property backs up to a nice creek and we have wood ducks year round. Last week here in the SE we had major flooding which flooded the meadow behind our back yard. I looked out and there was the woodie pair, swimming in the flooded meadow. There was also a heron fishing right next to our fence. Ginni, I hope we both get to see babies this spring!
Connie Kru
Original Author
13 years ago
Put up a box and they will come-That is our Motto
We have two boxes on our small pond. They fight over the boxes during breeding season.
Last year we had 80 babies jump.
We keep camera's in the box, so we can see what is going on.
If you missed seeing these last summer, this was a Father's Day Event that went on at our house.
http://s30.photobucket.com/albums/c311/maidenstauffer/?action=view&current=WoodDuck-6_3Cam_Part1.mp4
and if you want to see if the baby makes it you will have to watch
http://s30.photobucket.com/albums/c311/maidenstauffer/?action=view&current=WoodDuck-6_3Cam_Part2.mp4

We had a total of 80 baby wood ducks jump from our two boxes last summer.

Here is a link that might be useful: Wood duck babies
ginni77
13 years ago
Connie, I remember watching your wood duck last year!! I didn't want to leave the computer!! Thanks for posting it again...I'll check it out this weekend! :)
bandjzmom
13 years ago
That is so cool Connie! I would adore being able to observe Wood Ducks nesting. In fact, if I ever move to another house, I am going to try to find one that has a pond. It's the only thing I am missing.
Connie Kru
Original Author
13 years ago
A Red Screech Owl has moved into the Wood Duck Box. Two morning now the owl has prevented the Duck from entering.

Maybe we will get to watch baby owls instead of Wood Ducks this year.

The Ducks were entering the second box we have but they were being picked on by some big healthy looking Crows.
Mother Nature is sometimes hard to watch.
bandjzmom
13 years ago
Oh my goodness Connie. Well, this is all so interesting to me. I did some looking around on-line, and found some documentation of Wood Ducks evicting Screech Owls from their nestboxes and also of Screech Owl females incubating Wood Duck eggs! Whoda thunk?? I was surprised to read that the Screech Owls would even choose a box that was so low, but, then I don't know much about the nesting preferences of Owls. I did read that successful Screech Owl pairs will often return to the same nesting site each year, and that isn't good for you if you wanted nesting Wood Ducks. Maybe those darn Crows will leave the Ducks in peace, and they will go on to choose the other box for nesting. It isn't like the Crows need the box for nesting. I am interested in knowing about how this all plays out. Please keep us posted here???~~Angie

Here is a link that might be useful: Screech Owl/Wood Duck nesting info
Connie Kru
Original Author
13 years ago
Very interesting bandjzmom
As of now, it appears that the owl has left and the wood ducks are visiting both boxes and shaping the nest, but so far no eggs. I know that there is at least 2 pair of wood ducks so far. Last year we had at least 5 pair laying eggs in 2 boxes. We had several very serious fights between females in the box. You can never tell if the sitting duck or the 2nd duck won, as they tumble around inside the box so much.
Connie
bandjzmom
13 years ago
Wow Connie, I didn't realize that the female Ducks had so much conflict. You'd think they might break the eggs with all of that tumbling drama inside the box! :o)
Connie Kru
Original Author
13 years ago
I thought the same about egg damage, but I know that we saw at least 6 very violent fights last year and no broken or cracked egg resulted.
bandjzmom
13 years ago
Amazing Connie. I also didn't know that several pair of ducks would lay eggs inside the same box. Haven't ever educated myself about the specifics of Wood Duck nesting habits. Guess I need to do that! :o) Ok, I am doing some research, and I came across this nice write up on Wood Ducks. The site is associated with hunting, but the page on the Ducks is very nice.

Here is a link that might be useful: Wood Duck info
Connie Kru
Original Author
13 years ago
I know that at least 3 ducks were laying in one box at the same time last year. It is when the first duck that started laying starts to sit that the fighting starts, because the other ducks want in to lay there eggs and she wants nothing to do with that and will fight like crazy to keep them out.

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