CALIFORNIA WATERFOWL ASSOCIATION

WOOD DUCK MANAGEMENT PROGRAM

• 06 FEB 99 - First day of this page. We have yet to actually get into the field. Next Saturday (13 FEB 99) I will be getting together with the team. We will be going out on our route recharging boxes and seeing what we need to be doing.
  

• 13 FEB 99 - First day in the field. We went out this morning at 8 a.m. as a team and made our first rounds. We have a total of 17 Wood Duck boxes. They are numbered 74 through 90. Below I have links to the individual boxes so I can track the activity (or lack thereof) box by box. Our main job for today was "recharging" the boxes. That is taking out all of the old, wet saw dust and putting new, fresh sawdust down. We also were inspecting for overall condition of the boxes. Some of the boxes had old egg shells from last year, which I took as a good sign. Hopefully the ducks will be back this year. We took notes box by box today which will be included in each individual box page. I will hopefully get some pictures on here of what we do and see out there. A few of the boxes are in the water along a small beaver pond or along Broskey Lake. We needed waders to get to most of them, and while trying to reach boxes 87 and 88 along Broskey Lake, I decided to take a little swim. Well, not really, but I did get a little water over the top of my waders. That was a lot of fun. Ya right. Well, check out the individual box pages. There's nothing really fascinating in them right now, but hopefully there will be within the coming weeks. Everytime we go out, we will more then likely see some kind of ducks, mammals, or any other forms of wildlife. I will record them on here too. There are obviously more than what I list, such as thrushes and swallows. I can not identify every bird or mammal that I see, but will do my best. Enjoy.
  Wildlife Observed on 13 Feb 99:
  2 Bufflehead (male and female)
  1 Northern Harrier (Marsh Hawk)
  1 Great White Egret
  1 Red-tailed Hawk
  4 Canadian Geese
  7 Mallards
  2 White-backed Kites
  1 Coyote
  

• 02 MAR 99 - We made check our boxes for the second time today. It was a nice day again. Some of the boxes did show signs of activity. Many had the sawdust dug into some, forming an indentation in it. Again, we came across a lot evidence of owls. Owl scat and what I call owl "balls" are quite common. These owl balls are what the owls caugh up, much like a cats hairball after they've had a mouse of some other delicacy for a meal, they cough up the fur, bone and other undigestible parts. These are usually found on the top of the boxes, but one had as many as five inside it. Once again, I wasn't able to stay dry. I borrowed waders from another person, and they had holes in them. Not much I could do, so I spent the day wet up to my waist. I will have my waders by the next outing, so I will be able to keep dry. There were some neat findings in some of the boxes. We found a dead adult Barn Owl in one of them. It probably flew in and couldn't get out. Look through the boxes and see what we observed.
  Wildlife Observed on 02 Mar 99:
  2 Wood Ducks (fleeing)
  1 Northern Harrier (Marsh Hawk)
  2 Turkey Vultures
  5 Red-tailed Hawks
  7 or 8 Mallards
  1 Coyote
  1 Large dead Beaver
  1 Dead Barn Owl

• 30 MAR 99 - Today, I came across some very interesting findings. The details of each box are in the links below, but I found four boxes with Wood Duck eggs in them (74, 75, 78, and 87). Two of the boxes I looked in (74, 75) had the hen sitting on the eggs incubating when I opened the box. Both hens were flushed when I attemped to put the lid back on, so I was able to count the eggs. I was really excited to see some action in the boxes. In one other box (81) I found a nesting Barn Owl. The owl was still in the box when I opened it to look inside, and it stayed there when I put the lid back on, so I'm not sure if there are eggs there or not. There were two boxes (84 and 88) that had, what I believe to be, the start of Screech Owl nests. Since no eggs or hatchlings were present, I discarded the nest and recharged those boxes. We still had a problem with wasps in a few boxes, but I sprayed them and recharged all the boxes that had wasps present. One more important note: box 90, which was the box farthest to the west and along a small creek, was moved up along Broskey Lake, where we think it will be more inviting to the Wood Ducks and have better chance for production. As for other observations, one main one was a Canadian Goose nest that I found. The goose was still on the nest when I walked up, but she flew away as I got closer (I didn't know the nest was there). I counted six eggs in the nest. I will also try to track that nest as well as the duck boxes. And I didn't get wet at all!!
  Wildlife Observed on 30 Mar 99:
  2 Wood Ducks (fleeing)
  1 Northern Harrier (Marsh Hawk)
  2 Mallards
  At least a dozen American Coots
  1 Barn Owl
  1 Great White Egret
  3 Canadian Geese
  Numerous Tree Swallows
  3 Killdeer
  A Sandpiper (I didn't get a good enough look to determine the species)
  2 Red-tailed Hawks
  1 Great Blue Heron
  

Links to individual boxes:

Last Updated: 31 Mar 1999

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