Wood Ducks Leave the Nest Box

After approximately a month of incubating eggs, on May 26th, the female Wood Duck left the nest box for a morning break. We noticed one egg hatching at 6:00 a.m., and many other eggs hatching in the hours afterward. The mother duck endured all the active youngsters exploring the nest box for the next 24 hours.

Then, at about 8:45 a.m. the day after the hatching, the mother flew down out of the nest box, and gave a verbal signal for the young to follow. This video shows, in real time, how quickly the young left the nest box. All 15 young left in just over two minutes.

One interesting aspect of this is that Wood Ducks and Hooded Mergansers compete for the same nest boxes, and will lay eggs for each other to incubate. In this case, the brood included 14 young Wood Ducks and one Hooded Merganser. All will be cared for by the Wood Duck mother until ready to go out on their own.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• nest
• nesting
• duck
• wood duck
• hooded merganser
• bird
• birds
• wildlife
• nature
• ducks
• behavior
• parasitism
• nestlings
• leaving nest
• fledgling

[CODtheater]

Did that little duck climb out?!