Invasion Video
Today I recorded from both inside and outside the nest box as a hen tried to invade the nest of the incubating duck. She again provided strong resistance and I think the invader left without leaving an egg. Any egg that was laid at this time would not hatch with the others since it would need at least 4 weeks of incubation and the others are due to hatch in about 2 to 3 weeks.
The egg count has gone up. It was 20 on April 10th just after incubation began and yesterday, the 17th, the count was 26. There’s still just one hooded merganser egg. The other 25 are wood duck eggs. I don’t think an incubating duck will lay more eggs; that is, I think she starts incubation only when she’s all done laying. Thus the additional eggs (and quite of few of the original 20) are from other ducks like the one that tried today.
I edited the video to show what was happening both inside and outside at the same time. All of the audio is from the camera inside the nest. The outside video was taken with my regular camera on a tripod in the dining room.
East – 1 egg
Finally, some small progress in the East nest box. Ducks have been going in each morning and sometimes in the afternoon, however they have just kicked the wood chips around for a few minutes and then left. But yesterday one of them provided an egg.
In past years the east nest box has been popular, there are still several pairs of wood ducks visiting the yard each day, and there was snow on the ground up until a few days ago so it’s still kind of early. Hopefully one of the ducks will nest there.
20 eggs
The west nest box was empty when I checked a few minutes ago and I was able to get a count. The duck actually left without covering the eggs. When I checked the camera playback to see why, she was sleeping and then she opened her eyes wide and sat for about 1 second, then jumped for the door and left. Something startled her but I could detect nothing unusual. It was quiet (there was a good sound recording) and nothing visible that seemed abnormal.
There are 20 eggs. 19 of them are wood duck eggs but one is a hooded merganser egg: it is slightly larger, rounder, and whiter than the wood duck eggs. For the photo below I put it in the center, on top of the others.
She’ll come back fairly soon. It’s not unusual for a duck to leave suddenly when startled and they typically don’t stay away for very long. Also ducks don’t have much sense of smell and are not disturbed by my counting and slight rearranging as long as I put things back the way I found them … except in this case I covered the eggs with the down blanket when I was done counting and taking a picture, more or less as she would have done if she had left normally.
Merganser visit
A pair of hooded mergansers were here this morning. The female stayed on top of the nest box for almost an hour and looked in often. A hooded merganser will sometimes lay eggs in a wood duck nest (and vice versa, more on that is here) and she was considering it. But whenever the merganser bent down from the edge of the roof to look in she was greeted by an open bill and hissing from the wood duck inside and she never tried to enter. During this time the male merganser waited in the creek. The male ducks stay close to their partner while the hen is laying both for mating and to fend off other males but after that they aren’t around and have no role in caring for the ducklings.
Ducklings on about May 7
Incubation has begun in the west nest box. It sometimes can be hard to tell since ducks will sometimes rest there overnight without actually starting to incubate the eggs. But this time it’s clear: she has surrounded herself with down that she has plucked to allow body heat to get to the eggs and that she uses to tuck in around herself while on the nest and to cover the eggs when she leaves. And she has stayed on the nest for 16 hours Friday to Saturday, 18 hours Saturday to Sunday, and has been there for 22 hours since yesterday. Thus I’d say incubation started on Friday. Since wood duck incubation time is 30 days, plus or minus a couple of days, the ducklings should hatch sometime around May 7th.
I’ll get a count of the number of eggs the next time I see that she’s not in the nest. You should be able to see her almost any time that you check the camera during the next month. She will leave for only an hour or a few to get some food, once or twice per day.
