Your Comments - TX

The movies that our cam host so quickly and graciously generated are now available on the Wood Duck Cam Highlights page as well as the movie pages.

Thanks so much Jen!

TBN/CLO Staff

The picture that shows the female in the box with a nestling on the ladder is actually not the first fledgling leaving. In the two nests we've had on camera, the nestlings did not jump out until after the mom left the box. The nestlings seem to go through "ladder training" with mom coaching in the box, first. Then she leaves and calls to them. Only then did they go all the way out the hole to join mom on the ground.
It is really neat to see. When I send video clips to Cornell tomorrow, I will include at least one with Mom in the box coaching "ladder training."

Cam Host

Do you know how far the ducklings had to travel to get to water? Thank you.

how far do the chicks have to jump once they leave the nestbox and where do they land? Does the mother call them out or do they instictevly know what to do?

just curious

I got to see them leave!!! Wow! They have such a long way to climb. I was really lucky and got some great screen shots but it would be nice if there was streaming video so we could have watched them leave. - Will you have a stream of this posted later? -diane

Try to log in early to see them go!

Cam Host

I just got my first peek of a duckling under the female ... thanks so much for providing this cam!

They are barely starting to hatch. I can hear them peeping in their shells and there are little cracks where they're working on the egg shells. My husband will try to get the computer working later this evening when he gets home.

Cam Host

Thanks for changing the info to green. Easy to see now.

It looks like the first chick has hatched.

The last almost 18 hrs that I have looked in there has been no Mama duck, the eggs are not covered, and there are only 9! Has Mama duck been taken by a predator?

I took a quick peak this afternoon and was a little startled to see a human arm reaching into the nest. I assumed it belonged to the web cam host (knowing they would soon be making changes inside the box) Everything appears to be o.k., eggs still accounted for etc.... Just wanted to double check...before I start questioning my own sanity!!!

Could you please explain what a parsitized dump nest is?

Thanks very much.

I do not recommend that any one use hardware cloth for the ladder on any wood duck box. I have seen too many things on other wood duck projects that have been determental to both the hen and ducklings. I saw a hen caught under the HC that had come loose from the bottom. Hens can catch a sharp point of wire and tear their web and if the HC comes loose at the top it can keep flipping the hen back down from the entrance hole as well as flipping all the ducklings back to the bottom of the box until they are to tired & exhusted to climb any longer and all die. Flickers are often the culprit trying to make the inside of a square box round and work staples or nails loose. Even the hen puts pressure on the HC and can cause it to come loose over repeated trips out of the box. I have been maintaining, monitoring and banding wood ducks for 33 years in California and have been to a number of other states speaking and visiting their wood duck projects. I recommend that people router a ladder into the wood on the inside of the box (1/8" bit-1/8" deep)a little wider than the entrance hole and keep the grooves no further apart than 1/2" to 5/8" from the bottom of the entrance hole to three inches from the bottom. All 275 of my wood duck boxes have the routed ladder and I have never had a problem with hens or the 60,000 ducklings which have left my boxes.

what role does the male (father) play for in raising the chicks? Does he help to raise them once the fledge? I was also curious, as I haven't been watching the web cam for a very long time, to know if the male feeds the female as she incubates.
I have been enjoying the pics very much.

Thank You

Around 6pm eastern the mother was on the nest. i took a shower and went back to the cam and the eggs where all over the nest and the mother hasnt been back in 4 hrs and its 10pm eastern!

the eggs are not in the normal cluster as be4. they are scattered!

I missed it when the ducks fledged that one time, so I am so pumped to watch this from the beginning. How fun.

Is this the same box that the other nest was in?