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Videos

The videos below are also within the logs, back when they were first published.

A few have become popular: one of them has over 1 million views! 
Those with a view count over 100,000 have a green background below. 

The videos are hosted by YouTube but you can watch them right here.

If you want to, you can go to my YouTube channel and you will also find them there.

   

A Love Letter to Mama Ducks
12/6/2023 - The Dodo used my video in a new short that they produced. The clips of the wood ducks jumping from the nest, following their mother over a landscape rail, and in the creek are from my videos.  The clips with the mallard and her ducklings are from somebody else.

(When asking for permission to use my video again, they did not tell me it was going to be used as a promo for the Migration movie but the interruption is fairly short and perhaps it helps that the movie is supposed to be good.)
 
(3.5 minutes)

   

Two Ducks in the South Nest Box
4/19/2023 - Two wood ducks peacefully share a nest box for a while. 
(3 1/2 minutes)

   

Two Hooded Merganser Ducklings
June 8, 2022 - Only two of the nine eggs hatched, but those two followed their mother's call and left the nest box. The live video stream was not good when this happened. This video was made from the camera's own recordings and shows what occurred. (3 1/2 minutes)

   

Raccoon Inside!
June 2022 - A raccoon gets completely inside of the hooded merganser nest box. Fortunately it only gets one egg. It's a young raccoon because it is just barely small enough to get in through the nest box opening - usually that is not big enough for a raccoon. But with LOTS of squirming and wiggling it does get in, then later it takes another big effort to get out again. (7 minutes)

   

A Little Goblin Attacks!
July 2021 - The cameras inside the duck nest boxes have shown that sometimes a SOMETHING will come in darkest part of the night. One night this spring one of the goblins finally revealed itself to the cameras - by getting into one of the nests! - and it also was captured in a night-time clip by an outside camera. The video shows how the duck's choices determine what is required for a successful nest box design: the Little Goblin gets only some feathers. (6 minutes)

   

Cardinals 2021 - 10 days
May 2021 - Watch a pair of cardinals feeding their two chicks as they grow from the size of a marble up to nearly as big as an adult in just 10 days. At the end a Cooper's hawk takes both of the youngsters; a very tragic event for them and sad for us too, yet it is part of how nature works. (8 minutes)

   

LIttle Woodie's First Day
June 14, 2021 -  A children's story for the child in all of us.
Little Woodie is a wood duck who hatches a day late, after his family has left the nest. They aren't coming back because wood ducks don't do that. But Little Woodie still finds a good place to grow up.
(9 1/2 minutes)

   

Ducks sharing a nest box - April 13, 2021
Usually wood ducks disagree and fight when one is in the nest and another comes in, but once in a while they coexist peacefully and even seem to be affectionate.
(2 minutes)

   

2020 Hooded Mergansers  - May 19, 2020
This video tells a story about the first time (and so far the only time) that a Hooded Merganser chose to use one our camera nest boxes. Her eleven ducklings jumped on May 19th, 2020, but this video was published almost a year later in March 2021.
(15 minutes)

   

Night Terror (May 16, 2020)
A hooded merganser incubating eleven eggs has a night to remember ... or rather, to forget.

(5 minutes)

   

Mama Duck Coaches Her Babies Out Of The Nest For The First Time
4/21/2020 - The Dodo interviewed me and created a video!
(3 minutes)

   

Feather Fluff 4/12/2020
A wood duck hen plucks down from her body to feather her nest, and she has a squeaky sneeze at the end.
(41 seconds)

   

House Hunting 2020
This video shows the kind of amusing behavior of a hen checking out a nest box, to see if it might be a good place to hatch some ducklings. (3 minutes)

   

West nest 2, Jump day 
Nine ducklings jumped from their nest box and went off into the world on July 6th, 2019. It was the second round of ducklings in the west nest this spring. This video provides views from a ground-level camera and has some nice scenes of the duck family in the creek.
(6 minutes)

   

House Wrens
Wrens bring many different things for their youngsters to eat.
(2 1/2 minutes)

   

East Jump Day 2019
(7 minutes - 788,000 views)

Three cameras were used: a telephoto view from the side, the camera looking down inside the duck nest box, and for something different, a camera low to the ground below. The low camera was hidden from the ducks by a dark filter so that it could be close to them and still swivel and pan without scaring them.

   

West Nest Jump Day 2019
(16 minutes - 462,000 views)

So why yet another wood duck jump day video?

Well, this one has cute ducklings and interesting behavior … oh, wait, I guess they all have that. But it also has – a duckling with an eggshell stuck on his head – several Slo-Mo segments – a good story – improved editing (I hope) – and a nice ending.
Enjoy!

   

Invasion Video - 4/18/2019
Video from both inside and outside of the nest box as another duck tries to invade the nest of the incubating duck
(1 1/2 minutes)

   

Wood duck MMA
An incubating hen tries to get an intruder to leave in one of the most energetic and longest disputes that I have seen. The intruding hen finally lays an egg and leaves, after a long wrestling match.
(7 minutes)

   

Visitors on March 26th 2019
Wood duck hens inspecting the nest boxes, and an extra visitor too.
(3 minutes)

   

Nine ducklings 7/12/2018
Ducklings hatching and jumping from the West nest box - video from 3 cameras.
(17 minutes - 158,000 views)

   

Wood duck west nest - May 21, 2018
West nest box ducklings hatching and jumping on May 20th and 21st of 2018.
(11 minutes - 1,109,000 views)

On YouTube there have been comments for this video asking about the last duckling that doesn't get out. Here is a response. 

   

Duck family 6/29/17
Ducklings busily munching on the water plants in the creek.
(1 minute)

   

Jump Day 6/28/17
Both the East and West nest boxes had ducklings leave on the same day.
(12 minutes)

   

West Nest 5/14/2017
Ducklings jumping from the nest box and the hen leading them away. Includes a slow-motion segment at the end of the little ducks "Learning to Fly".
(12 minutes - 186,000 views)

   

East Nest 5/10/2017
Ducklings jumping from the nest box accompanied by our comments as we watched them.
(3 minutes) 

   

Bouncing Baby Ducks
Slow motion of ducks landing and bouncing in the grass.
(No ducklings were harmed in the making of this video.)
(1 minute)

   

Two ducks, East nest
5/9/2018 - selected segments from 8 minutes of video.
(2 minutes)

   

Brief fight
4/23/2018 - One wood duck defends her nest from another.
(2 minutes)

   

Mallards 4/26/2017
A Mallard hen struggles to get her cold and wet ducklings to jump down from their nest in our planter so she can take them to the creek for some food and shelter. Has a happy ending.
(5 minutes)

   

A Wood Duck Story - 2010
An edited story of incubation, hatching, and leaving the nest box seen from inside and outside the nest. Natural sound with captions.
 (22 minutes - 105,000 views)

   

moderator@birdsgv.com - Golden Valley, Minnesota, USA