Nature Done Wright

    When I looked inside the vacated wood duck box yesterday, I was surprised for two reasons.

   1. There were no unhatched wood duck eggs, and the nest was incredibly neat, with a faint layer of duckling down.

   2. There was a dead bird in the box — but not a duckling. It appeared to be a young grackle.

   (The photo is below at bottom of post; it’s nothing terribly horrible, but the squeamish are forewarned.)

   How the young grackle got there is a mystery. Any ideas?

    Strangely, there was only one egg shell in the box, even though there had been nine wood ducklings.

    I am told that the babies and mother wood duck nibble on the eggshells for nourishment before heading out. So why wasn’t that egg touched?

    All theories welcome.