I am finally getting all the records together for last spring’s breeding season of Wood Ducks and Hooded Mergansers. My notes for the team:
Well, it’s been a minute since we last checked our boxes. Here’s the final spreadsheet:
The mergansers were much more efficient and effective, hatching and fledging 64 ducklings from 72 eggs laid in 5 clutches. By contrast, the Wood Ducks had a bad year: 12 nests started and 110 eggs laid, but a couple of big nest failures led to only 28 ducklings hatched and fledged.
We had two boxes with evidence of predation by Black Ratsnake. I wonder how the snakes have figured out their way around the predator guards.
There are some minor maintenance notes in the spreadsheet that I will follow up on next season.
Thank you for all your help!
I’m still working on the graph and the grand summary table.