| By Darold Givens March is the beginning of nesting season for the wood ducks and the season for the Foster City Rod and Gun club crew to get underway. The crew of Ken Bertelsen, Don Woods, Roger Hatin, Jim Danse and myself started by checking the boxes in the field for preparation of the nesting season. Many of the boxes were field ready, which means there was wood shavings enough for a soft nest and the boxes were in good enough shape and survived the harsh winter. There were many boxes though that needed our attention. Some of the boxes were torn off their tree or post and were replaced by new boxes. In most cases where one fell, we replaced two. Four boxes were replaced by nine boxes. I had heard that other programs had nesting birds already in their boxes but our project did not have a single nesting wood duck. We did find some barn owls poaching in some boxes, but they were not wanted. Our attention did focus on the size of the opening of the boxes. All original boxes had a 3in X 4in size hole but sometimes animals such as raccoons like to increase the size for entry. We put new openings on several of the boxes to prevent more owl encroachment. Our hard work in the field prepared over 125 boxes in four different areas. We will continue to monitor the boxes every two to three weeks and when the hens begin to incubate eggs, I will have a banding crew to capture hens for a day of banding and also check other hens for previously banded numbers. This is an annual event and never gets old for me. Every time I look into a box, I never know what will be looking back at me. I hope it is a hen woody. |
:: WOOD DUCK NESTING SEASON STARTS ::
| ::Foster City Rod and Gun Club :: |
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