Our feathered residents are very much in search nesting options now that we’ve had a couple of warm weeks. Nesting season starts a little later here in the Southern Tablelands near Canberra.
Two duck nest boxes are now occupied, another has eggs being laid, and a couple of parrot boxes have had the wood shavings inside shredded – an indication that egg laying isn’t far off. Our resident Kookaburra family are very seriously scouting the options also, I wonder if they will return to the nest box they’ve used for the past two years?
Clearly the word is out that we have nest boxes for all.
Kooka missed out on this box. It looks as if Wood Ducks trump Kookaburras, once egg laying begins.This box now has a sitting Wood Duck, with a rather large clutch of eggs with two contributing egg layers.A rather large clutch of 15 + eggs for the couple above. Two Wood Ducks contributed, one in the morning and one at midday each day.
These are nest boxes made by Hollow Log Homes in QLD, the Boobook Owl, Wood Duck, and Rosella designs.
Dibs! This hopeful Wood Duck was ambushed by a pair of Crimson Rosellas, who clearly have called dibs on this nest box.Hmmmm does it fit? Is it comfy?Checking out the furnishings.A young Crimson Rosella nest box shopping also.This Wood Duck is also sitting on a clutch of eggs now. They look to be all hers – only one was added per day or few for the egg laying period.A tidy clutch of 10 Wood Duck eggs. All laid by the one female for this nest.Kooka checking out a Wood Duck nest box design. This one is already claimed also, there are now three Wood Duck eggs inside. This nest box is showing signs of interest from a few different species. The droppings are from Wood Ducks, and the chewed paintwork is from Eastern or Crimson Rosellas.Our for-Sugar Glider nest boxes are still vacant, they use natural tree hollows over the colder months.Evidence of a Rosella making the nest box ready for some eggs – partially shredded wood shavings.
One of those times, when your best is just not good enough.
This is what I discovered yesterday when doing nest box checks. This late Mrs Wood was our first sitting duck of the season, she started sitting 3+ weeks ago on a small clutch of eggs. The eggs are gone, and there is a large blood spatter on the exit wall of the box. She has been dead for a week or so.
Do you see the big blood spatter on the top right side of the entrance? She probably was killed while defending her clutch.
Who dunnit?
I don’t know! My wildlife cameras had been occupied elsewhere, looking for feral predators and watching trap sets, or recording possum antics on my experimental possum guard testing tree.
Three was a crowd, that is the late Mrs Wood inside, keeping other curious ducks out of her box three weeks ago.
Probably someone with wings. Unlikely to be a Brushtail possum, cat or fox with the possum guards installed above & below the nest box. These guards wouldn’t exclude a Sugar Glider (I use a slightly different method), but I had assumed duck eggs & Ducks are a bit above their size to take on. Whoever it was, took her eggs and wasn’t keen on duck for dinner. How strange is that? Or it was something that wanted her nest box?
Two cameras are now watching the nest box to see if the killer returns. A bonus chicken egg awaits inside.
I’ve cleaned the nest box out, added a chicken egg and installed two cameras to document a return visit. I’ve put a camera on our other almost-time-to-sit Wood Duck nest box too, with a hoard of 18 eggs. Fingers crossed this nest box stays safe.
Gross bedding replaced and a chicken egg added as bait.
While death by a native animal is just a natural thing (albeit very sad for me), if I have installed nest boxes in locations and ways that make their occupants very vulnerable to predators, that is something that I want to know about and fix. With very few natural hollows in my local previously cleared, regenerating landscape, species needing hollows to nest will select sub-optimum sites in desperation.
This box has 18 eggs laid within, sitting has not yet begun. I’ll be watching closely from now! Update: no-one sat on these eggs. They probably discovered the dead sitting duck in the nearby nest box and gave it a miss.
Survival, it’s risky business for Ducks. Many critters including Brushtails, Ravens & Currawongs will raid duck nests for eggs before sitting begins, I also have footage of a Brushtail trying to kill a sitting Wood Duck by night. All predators native & feral will take ducklings out and about if they can, with duck families especially vulnerable while sleeping on the ground for months before ducklings grow feathered wings. With few tree hollows, many feral predators, and fast cars on rural roads, it’s no wonder locally, teenage ducklings are a rare sight.
In the next week or two, I’ll paint the (deadly) nest box in woodland bark colours and relocate it to a more discrete location. Hopefully that will do the trick. And closely monitor all duck boxes from now.
