so this spring we had a great opportunity to observe wood ducks on the pond right here in
my yard in northern pennsylvania these are two male wood ducks and then one wood duck hen there
she's drab right now the males in fact changed her colors through the year and they also become
drab at the end of the year but you can always pick out the male wood deck by that red orange
eye and the color of the bill so they're competing to mate with this female the good news is
this pond is full all year round and early spring is a great time for them to get together
i also leave the areas around the edges of the pond rough so there's lots of hiding places
there's also a wood duck box on a metal pole at the edge of the pond and the entrance faces the
water i've had it out there for years dogs have visited it and look like they were gonna nest
and mergansers also come this way hooded were ganzers and uh they just don't seem
to take but this year was different so it's 2022 and i actually had a hen
develop a clutch of brood here she is hiding out look what's around her there in the water
hidden by the overgrowth so this reminds me i should always leave cattails around
and lots of detritus so that the pond not only looks natural but becomes a good habitat and
she's gonna come out but i wanted to show how well concealed she is and these ducklings are new
and there's something among the ducklings that is going to be interesting hopefully to you
as well as it was to me not all these ducklings look the same so that led me on a quest to learn
more about them there's about 15 ducklings here they are less than a week old it looks like
and their chances of survival are pretty slight because these ducks will lead their ducklings
over land as far as a mile in a day so they go from waterway to waterway and they continue to
move around and these ducklings are bait for everything largemouth bass could eat
them mink are big predators but what i wanted you to notice here swimming along in the group
most of these ducks look alike but see the one with the larger head
kind of tan cheeks there with no stripe around the eye
that is a merganser duckling so how did that happen well often the ducks will lay eggs in
each other's nest boxes wood ducks will lay some of their eggs in mergans or nest boxes or nest
sites if they're in dead trees and things like that and other megazords likewise will park an egg
or two and amongst the wood duck eggs and that's how we ended up with this little stowaway here
look how tightly they cluster together even cold weather can wipe them out we get a late
season storm early season but uh cold nights hail lots of things even feral cats go after ducklings
bull frogs can even eat them so this pond is not huge so they didn't stick around
unfortunately i won't be able to watch them develop all the way
maybe 10 will make it but of course the more experienced the hen is like the more years that
she's had brewed the more successful she's going to be so a first year hand would not do so well
and they eat a lot of different things here invertebrates in the water
and i thought that i would share this video with you and let you see the ducklings
on my pond so i'm glad you stopped in to watch i'll just leave you to watch the rest
if you want to learn more about ducks in north america go to ducksunlimited.org
and learn a little bit about how you can maybe set up an environment that will be appealing to ducks
within a mile of this location is the french creek watershed area so she can walk that
mile with her ducklings and of course get to extended water tributaries and wetland areas
where these ducks can grow to maturity and hopefully come back next year
another thing is to get the ducks to nest and it does in a duck box would be to um
you can even cut down a tree if you're clearing brush near your pond and maybe cut one off right
at about four feet height and mount a duck nesting box right on top of that tree stump and they don't
care if the tree is dead or alive so if it's a dead tree and you're clearing it out anyway
save one of those posts and then put of course predator guards around the base of that tree stump
and have the entrance facing the water your chances could be good so also duck plans duck
box plans are available at websites like ducks unlimited national wildlife federation also has
that information but i hope you enjoy looking at this hand with her ducklings have a great day
so
mr
you