CICDW Wood Duck Box Clean Out

We had a great time this morning out on the ice of Province Pond. Several members of the Central Indiana Chapter of Delta Waterfowl braved the single-digit wind chills to clean out the wood duck boxes we installed at Province Pond FWA last winter. The ice-gods were kind to us and gave us some very solid ice to slide around on as we cleaned out the boxes we installed a year ago. I am VERY happy with the success rates that we seen in the boxes.....with roughly 80% of the boxes having evidence of successful hatching and leaving of the nest. We didn't witness any dump-nesting, where the hen lays her eggs and then leaves them. All of the active boxes had broken shells and no remains of chicks, so hopefully the ones that hatched at least made it up and out of the boxes. We did have boxes that had unhatched eggs, but in all those cases they seemed to be eggs that were left after the clutch had left the box. All-in-all our efforts certainly paid dividends for the Wood Ducks at Province Pond FWA!

The photos:

Successful Nest Box-


Workin' on the cleanout-


Another Successful Nest-










Old box that we need to replace-


Mike opening the Screech Owl box... this owl was nesting in this box last year, so it's safe to say that this is it's home-




John fell through the ice, and we had to toss him the life ring to save him-


Walking back from a job well done-