Nature Done Wright

Momma Wood Duck escorts her nine youngsters to a nearby lake. Photo by Kevin Watson

My latest column is all about the time a female wood duck commandeered my screech owl box this spring and started a family.

Wood ducklings have been seen recently on the Celery Farm's Lake Appert and Allendale's Crestwood Lake.

You can read the column below. 

By Jim Wright

Special to The Record | USA TODAY NETWORK – NEW JERSEY

   No matter how much we humans plan, nature has a knack for doing otherwise.

   Take the squirrel-resistant owl box in my backyard. This past winter, screech owls roosted there. But when it came time to nest, they moved on and a duck egg magically appeared the next day. 

   Didn’t Momma Wood Duck know she was in the "wrong" box? Apparently not.

   All was not lost. Although wood ducks have fascinated me for more than two decades,  I’d never known what went on inside their nestboxes – until Momma Duck appeared. Because I had installed a livestreaming videocam inside, I could watch whatever happened.   

    Over the next 10 days, Momma laid several eggs and got down to some serious incubating. I couldn’t tell how many eggs because she carefully covered them with down  every time she took her twice-daily bathroom breaks.

   I was thrilled but … a potential fly lurked in the proverbial ointment. Wood ducklings are precocial. That means they can move about and feed themselves almost immediately. 

   Wood duck boxes come equipped with little ladders so the ducklings can enter the real world the day after they hatch. No lie.

    Alas, my owl box lacked a ladder. I consulted three experts. One said I needed a ladder. The other two said the rough-hewn pine planks on the front panel would suffice.

   One afternoon in mid-May, I activated the videocam and saw the eggs hatch. The ducklings – which weighed approximately an ounce each – would try to exit the next day. A friend fashioned a little ladder to attach to the opening and agreed to be on standby.

   The next morning, I got up at sunrise to monitor the ducklings’ progress. Mom was still inside, keeping a lid on her babies’ exuberance. A professional nature-photographer friend waited near the box to document the ducklings' departure.

  Around 11 a.m., Mother Duck exited and the ducklings started percolating like popcorn. I hit “record” and watched as the ducklings jumped, collided and climbed. 

    Everything happened so fast that it became a blur. In just over a minute, nine ducklings somehow scrabbled up to the opening and leapt. No ladder needed.

   The photographer noted that the instant the last duckling landed, Momma whisked them to the nearby lake. (Momma Wood Ducks must know how to count.) 

    In the ensuing days and weeks, birders watched the web-footed tribe paddling about, and I’d like to think that most of the youngsters have evaded the snapping turtles that patrol the lake like U-boats.

   One of the great things about having a backyard nestbox – especially one with a videocam – is you never know what nature will surprise you with next. Stay tuned.

    To see a short video of the ducklings leaving home (set to music), go to http://bit.ly/3FWEnhY (Also posted below).

In two weeks: All about Ridgewood’s bird-feeder ordinance.

   The Bird Watcher column appears every other Thursday.  Email Jim at celeryfarm@gmail.com.