Hi all - I have only about eight wood duck boxes in the rather small flooded woodland behind our house, and I have always been somewhat amazed at the number of unhatched eggs. I have a copy of Ecology and Management of the Wood Duck by Bellrose and Holm, and they state that studies they did show little evidence that the number of available nest sites is related to the degree of dump-nesting. This seems counter intuitive to me but I have noticed that we have some boxes with dumping even when other boxes go unused. We have a camera in one box and have witnessed dump nesting, sometimes with two hens in the box at the same time. The last two years we have also had a Cooper's hawk nest in the back , and each year at least one woodie hen has been victimized by them. My wife thinks the Cooper's should be "taken care of" but I opt for letting nature take its course, however cruel that seems to us. Both years the Cooper's have had unsuccessful nests. They seem to incubate for about a month and then one day are suddenly gone. I am trying to figure out a way to get a camera up to their nest. Kurt Petersen Sheboygan County -----Original Message----- From: wisbirdn-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:wisbirdn-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mark and Sue Martin Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2012 9:14 PM To: Wisconsin Birding Network Cc: Mark and Sue Martin Subject: [wisb] Fw: Wood Duck nest boxes Hi Madison Audubon Society members have been busy checking 203 wood duck nest boxes and found 166 used (81%), and 108 hatches (53%). Some people have found a lot of unhatched eggs. One couple found 401 unhatched eggs in 41 boxes with a lot of dump nests. I recently talked with my old Wildlife Professor and he said that if we have a lot of dump nesting that more boxes should be installed. Sue and I checked 37 boxes in one area. 35 boxes were used and 28 nests hatched (one box had two hatched). All of the boxes on land have cone predator guards. The nests that were not successful mostly had starling problems. What is interesting is that 14 boxes had eggs from both Wood Ducks and Hooded Mergansers and 8 boxes contained only Hooded Merganser eggs. Mergansers have greatly increased in our area. Mark and Sue Foote-Martin Columbia County Arlington ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jeffrey Bahls" <jbahls@xxxxxxxxxxxx> To: "wisbirdnet" <wisbirdn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, February 10, 2012 12:57 PM Subject: [wisb] Wood Duck nest boxes >I did a midway tally of my 2011 hatch year wood duck nest boxes, with > 49 boxes checked, 23 boxes have produced ducklings . That comes out to > 46% successful boxes (so far) those boxes have produced 211 ducklings > (again so far) This year has been huge for unhatched eggs, I think I > have only 1 box that didn't have an Wood Duck egg in. I have 100(ish) > boxes out. > I generally average about 50-55% successful nests and about 400 > ducklings for a typical year. Stay tuned... > > Jeff Bahls > Lowell Wi > Dodge Co > #################### > You received this email because you are subscribed to the Wisconsin > Birding Network (Wisbirdn). > To UNSUBSCRIBE or SUBSCRIBE, use the Wisbirdn web interface at: > //www.freelists.org/list/wisbirdn > To set DIGEST or VACATION modes, use the Wisbirdn web interface at: > //www.freelists.org/list/wisbirdn > Visit Wisbirdn ARCHIVES at: //www.freelists.org/archives/wisbirdn > > #################### You received this email because you are subscribed to the Wisconsin Birding Network (Wisbirdn). To UNSUBSCRIBE or SUBSCRIBE, use the Wisbirdn web interface at: //www.freelists.org/list/wisbirdn To set DIGEST or VACATION modes, use the Wisbirdn web interface at: //www.freelists.org/list/wisbirdn Visit Wisbirdn ARCHIVES at: //www.freelists.org/archives/wisbirdn #################### You received this email because you are subscribed to the Wisconsin Birding Network (Wisbirdn). To UNSUBSCRIBE or SUBSCRIBE, use the Wisbirdn web interface at: //www.freelists.org/list/wisbirdn To set DIGEST or VACATION modes, use the Wisbirdn web interface at: //www.freelists.org/list/wisbirdn Visit Wisbirdn ARCHIVES at: //www.freelists.org/archives/wisbirdn