On Monday morning, May ninth, Deb Rice
and her daughter, Kim, were having coffee in their Round Lake home.
Suddenly, there arose quite a clatter from their wood stove. After
removing the stovepipe they got a look at their unexpected visitor…
a duck! The duck gave Kim a hard time as she worked to get it out of
its jam and into a cat carrier. Deb called the village office for
advice on what to do about the duck. The office called me and I went
over to check it out.
Deb’s chimney had been feather
dusted by a female Wood Duck. This time of year around the village,
Wood Duck pairs can be seen perched in trees and on top of chimneys
as they are looking for a place to nest. Strong claws allow them to
perch on branches, grip bark and get in and out of holes in trees.
Actually it’s the female who scopes out cavities in trees for
satisfactory real estate while the male patiently waits for her to
make a decision.
The Mama duck at Deb’s looked fine,
only losing a couple of feathers after coming down the chimney. I
went outside to see if there was a tree she might fly to or have a
nest in and there was a tree right next door in Jeff Max’s yard. We
decided to let her go. We opened up the carrier, she flew off and was
immediately joined in flight by two other ducks. They flew over to
South Lawn, circled back and landed in Jeff’s tree. An hour or so
later, I saw her and her mate fly over to a tree by the stream west
of South Lawn. A better location for nesting as the first thing Mama
does after the ducklings hatch and jump out of the nest is lead them
to water. Hopefully they will make a wise choice!
On May sixth, Bob and Linda Connors
had twenty baby Wood Ducks drop out of a cavity in a tree in their
front yard. A garage sale was going on. Mama led the ducklings under
the auditorium away from cars and people. We hoped she would stay
under there with them until things quieted down. No one saw her make
her get-away to water with her ducklings.
Last year, the Connors hosted a brood
of twenty-two Wood Duck babies in a nest in their yard. After jumping
out of the nest, which doesn’t bother them at all even at heights
of sixty feet or higher, Mama had all the ducklings behind her as she
led them down Prospect Avenue. However, ten ducks stayed close behind
her and the other twelve started having a hard time keeping up. Mama
made a left and headed over to Schoolhouse Park. The twelve
stragglers became confused, got caught up in tall grass, and
scattered. Mama didn’t wait for them to catch up. They lost sight
of her and so did I.
I called a wildlife rehabilitator who
said to catch the ducklings and then reunite them with any mother
wood duck I could find. Molly, Samantha and I got quite the work-out
trying to round up the ducklings. We were successful and kept them in
a box with blankets. Then I drove and walked around the village
searching for a Mama. No luck. I drove the ducklings to a rehabber in
Guilderland who put them in a heated cage with other ducklings. They
had water and duck feed. She released them into the wild when they
were ready.
I have learned that “Jump Time”
usually happens before noon. Broods are typically about ten or eleven
babies. Huge broods of over twenty are because of egg dumping. This
is when a female lays her eggs in another duck’s nest and lets that
first female rear the ducklings. The Round Lake ducks have two
beautiful cedar boxes on the stream south of the village. They
haven’t used them. They seem to be attracted to large trees right
in the middle of the village. This puts them in danger when they have
to walk to water, past cars, cats, dogs, and people.
Deb will be getting a cap for her
chimney and I am certain I will be getting more calls for wayward
Wood Ducks around the village.
