Author: Paul

The East and West nests started incubation on the same day, hatched about a month later both on the same day, and at around 9:15 am on the 20th all of the ducklings left within a few minutes of each other. Each nest box started out with 12 eggs although more eggs were added by other ducks in later days, bringing the count up to 16 and 17. None of the late eggs hatched and all of the original eggs produced ducklings. I can tell because I put a tiny dot on each of the original eggs on the day incubation starts if possible: as soon as I see the duck is away from the nest and I can safely open the nest box.

Wood ducks and even a hooded merganser continue to visit the nest boxes very briefly – a few minutes – and not every day. So some are still looking for nest sites and there might be a chance that another round will occur. In the past nest boxes have sometimes been used twice. If that does happen I’ll certainly post about it and set up the cameras again.

Otherwise this wraps up another year of watching and streaming video about these fun and interesting birds. I hope you enjoyed it!

And … Good luck little ducks!

Here’s a link to a page that describes what the ducks do on Jump Day (today or tomorrow).

Camera trouble – resolved:

You may have noticed that the birdsgv.com cameras were down for a few hours today. When setting up my network to add the outdoor cameras my router failed and I was not able to get it working again. Of course this occurred on the day when the maximum number of people care about the internet connection from here (usually it’s just two people). Fortunately the local computer store had what I needed and the cameras are online again.

4 cameras are online:

You’ll see both an inside and an outside view of each nest box at the birdsgv.com web site. Choose your browser’s “reload” option if you don’t see all four of them.

When will they jump?

It’s difficult to predict. Last year I thought they’d go the next morning when ducklings hatched during the day. They seemed vigorous and ready and many people watched all morning and into the early afternoon. However momma duck judged they weren’t ready after less than 20 hours in the nest so they stayed a second night and left very early on the second morning. Will these ducks do the same thing? Or will they leave tomorrow morning or later in the day tomorrow? Morning departure is very typical, however one year a nest of ducklings jumped at about noon. The only prediction I can say for sure is they’ll be gone by Thursday.

I’m working on the issue. I hope to have everything back online later this evening.

I haven’t seen ducklings yet – lots of fluffy down and momma duck in the way – but both the East and West mother ducks are eating eggshells (good nutrition for them), and moms and babies are talking to each other so hatching is happening. I’d hoped the two nests would do this one day apart.

So when will they jump?

It will be either tomorrow or Thursday morning, but which one? When they hatch in the evening or overnight it’s easier to predict, but since they are hatching during the day it’s harder to know. My guess is Thursday because tomorrow morning it will be less than 20 hours out of the egg for most of the ducklings. But the outside cameras will be live tomorrow in case they go then.