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.

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.

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!

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

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! :)

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.

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.

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

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

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)

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.

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

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.