IN THE FIELD WITH THE WOOD DUCKS
By Darold Givens

It is that time of year when male wood ducks wait outside the nesting boxes, waiting for
the females to emerge and follow her to her feeding area. There they do what wood
ducks do best, make more wood ducks. Our trip to the Sacramento Valley to check on
our boxes was met with great success. My crew consisted of Eric Swanson and Don
Woods. We have the task of checking over 100 wood duck nesting boxes, count the
countless eggs, capture hens on nest for banding and register the chicks that have
hatched. Most of the boxes had either a sitting hen or at least, a box full of eggs. It is my
task to determine if the nest will survive or should I pull the eggs and take them to an egg
recovery place in Live Oak. We took 271 eggs this trip.

We banded 14 hens, captured 6 that had been previously banded and registered 187
hatches, including some that had chicks in the box that were breaking out as we
peeked.  We also left 995 eggs on the nest that are potential chicks. This is certainly an
exciting time. Even though the temperature was nearing 100 degrees, it is still worth the
sweat. Of course all this has to be documented for CWA and my own stats. There is also
some physical labor involved. Dragging ladders to get to the higher boxes, repair
damaged boxes and using portable power tools. It is all part of the process. We even got
a chance to see a pair of fawns on the Sacramento Refuge that were pure albino. You
don’t see that every day. Their mom was a typical black tail. There are also many other
birds, mammals and yes, bees and wasps that fight back. If the weather gets any
warmer (100 deg or higher) for a sustained time, we may lose many of the nests as we
did last year when the heat was unbearable during the early part of July. I like to check
the boxes every two weeks to get an accurate count and to maintain this wonderful
renewable resource.
Wood Duck Project 2008
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Foster City Rod and Gun Club
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