From our most recent nest box monitoring report, with some photo annotations:
A quite pleasant morning on the wetland.
Win some, lose some: Box #84 is hatched out, and Kat and Chris found WODU ducklings in box #2. It’s possible that a Wood Duck is starting a second clutch in box #6, with 2 eggs laid there recently. So for the season, that’s 13 of the 16 boxes with nests, and 6 nests that have fledged so far.
On the downside, it appears that boxes #1 and #3 were predated by snakes: the boxes are not messy inside, just empty, and there is mud streaking in box #1’s pole that could be snake-caused. These are the 2 new boxes bear the observation tower, the ones that don’t have predator cones.
Let’s meet again on 22 May and check all the boxes. Based on what we find then, we’ll make a plan for at least one day in June, perhaps two.
We got some looks at the Barred Owl adult and owlets; newly-observed birds for the season were Acadian Flycatcher and Northern Rough-winged Swallow; migrant Pectoral Sandpiper and other shorebirds. Chris turned up a wee American Toad near the vistors’ center.
