First work day of the season maintaining and checking nest boxes! We already have nests started in two, maybe three boxes (I suspect one of the nests is from last year, abandoned), and this is all before we fluffed up the boxes with fresh chips inside. We also have an open to-do item to install predator guards on the poles. We introduced new recruit Kathy to the dubious pleasures of squoodging through the soft mud of the wetland. And we got a little training in the new protocol for cleaning our gear, in hopes of controlling the spread of ranavirus.
Our resident beavers have rebuilt the lodge that wants to overtake the bench at the start of the boardwalk. And, at that same spot, they have built a new dam off to the left of the boardwalk.
We heard female Wood Ducks hoo-eeking numerous times; lots of Mallards hanging out, too.
Down by box #13, on the dry land before the observation tower, I found something that’s fairly common but I’d never noticed it before, probably because I wasn’t looking for it: the hunkered-down, overwintering, two-colored leaves of Cranefly Orchid (Tipularia discolor).