Wood Ducks Leaping from Nest Box

On May 27, after a month of incubation, 14 Wood Duck and one Hooded Merganser chicks followed their Wood Duck mother and leaped from the nest box into the real world of water and sun. We had been watching them on a nest cam attached to a television.

From past experience, we knew that the chicks would hatch one day, and the mother would keep them in the nest box for about 24 hours before leaving. So we set up video and still cameras outside, dodging raindrops, and waited for the grand event.

At 8:45 a.m., nearly 27 hours after the first egg hatched, the mother duck left the box and dropped to the water below. Then she signaled by voice that it was OK to follow, and in 2 minutes, 20 seconds, all 15 young made the leap to follow her (we missed catching the first few in this video). Then they swam along the lakeshore, out of sight, and ventured into their new and exciting lives.

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Pets & Animals

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