Nesting Boxes for Wood Ducks

[Old No7]

This is something I've always wanted to do, ever since I joined Ducks Unlimited decades ago. Believing it's never too late to start, we cut, assembled and mounted 2 Nesting Boxes for Wood Ducks this year, and we'll plan to do 6 or 8 more next winter. My wife thought it was really cool that we did this, and she wants to do more.

She assisted with the assembly and installation, and I had all the joy (Yay!!! As I love the smell of wood !!!) of cutting out all the pieces. In the 1st image, you can see a small piece of 1/2" hardware cloth that serves as a ladder inside so the baby ducks can climb up and out. I've read that baby Wood Ducks will leave the box after just one day! What's not shown is the 2" of fresh pine shavings we added in the bottom of each box. In the installed images, you can see the aluminum flashing which is spiraled around the tree below the box to act as a predator guard; and it's painted with rust primer to help it blend in. Next time, I will use flashing that isn't as wide, as that may wrap a little better around the trees.

Since they are secured with galvanized lag screws, I did get landowners permission to install one of these and I put a game camera near one of them that's just on the edge of my property. The last image shows the old cranberry bog that's located 1/3 mile out behind my house; and that feeds a small slow-moving creek. We put one box by a large quiet pool to the left of the water in that image, and another on a quiet corner of the creek about 1/4 mile downstream -- about 150 yards through the woods from my back yard. We won't check these until next winter (one side opens up like a hatch, but is secured with a screw), and then we'll clean them out and put in fresh shavings next March to be ready for nesting season.

It will be a long time waiting, but we're pretty excited to do this. I was inspired by the DU Member that my lab goes to 2X per week, for play and exercise with other labs -- as he maintains a fleet of about 25 of these boxes, and he's just started to build Nesting Tubes too (topic for another day). The rough-sided (outside) pine boxes will gray up in time, and as long as the trees they are on stay upright, there no reason not to expect these to last 10 years or so. Plans are available online from DU or other duck orgs. It was a fun and interesting project to do.

Quack! Quack!

Old No7

Duck Box 01.jpg

Duck Box 03.jpg

Duck Box 04.jpg

Duck Box 05.jpg

[AJMD429]

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That's pretty cool. I hope you get some ducks in them.

We have a tiny pond but it's near a river so it has been habitat for wood ducks most years and occasionally hooded mergansers or black ducks.

The funny thing is we went to great effort to put up a couple boxes, one on a pole in the water to reduce climbing predators and another one we hoisted with great effort 40 ft up into a tree at the edge of the water.

However, instead of taking advantage of those boxes, generally the wood ducks nest about 70 ft off the ground in a huge sycamore tree about 60 or 70 yd away from the pond, and when the babies come out and are not really able to fly they sort of fall out and bang on the limbs and bounce around flapping futilely all the way down. It's a wonder they survive.

The hooded mergansers we had a couple years ago numbered seven the first time we saw the babies and then the next day six, and the next day five and within 10 days the last one disappeared. There was a large snapping turtle in the pond, but I had remedied it's lead deficiency earlier, and we think predation was probably hawks or owls.

[BenT]

Just cleaned the wood duck houses out this last weekend by the creek. Haven't got any wood ducks residents yet just owls.

[Drawdown]

That's cool there Old7, if I had a place like that I'd sure do it too. You'll enjoy em!

[hondo1892]

I have been wanting to put a couple boxes up on a pond on my hunting property but never have found the time to make one. I usually have a couple of pairs that visit the pond in the fall. It would be nice to have them there in the spring and summer. Although I would have to get rid of some racoons to give the chicks a chance to make it to adulthood.

We had a kildeer couple make a nest in our driveway one year. We were careful to make sure the nest stayed safe and undisturbed. One day my wife was watching the newly hatched chicks running around with one of the parents. Next thing a crow swooped down and started killing the chicks. My wife doesn't like to hunt but said she would have killed that crow if she could have that day. She now is a certified crow hater.

[Ysabel Kid]

Nicely done!!!

[RIHMFIRE]

VERY COOL.