Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Wildlife Management Baby Wooduck Rescue

Wife text me and said she needed a visit to the property to wind down after work. No trouble convincing me.

We always drive around and across the dam on our way out and we noticed a momma woodduck acting very nervous around our overflow pipe. well sure enough "ALL" of her babies were down in the bottom of the concrete box. So down I went. I was able to get all but 2 or 3 and they went down the pipe and came out below the dam. Surely momma will go down and get them tonight. Didnt think to have the wife grab my phone and snap a couple of pictures until the last one.

atta boy, R&R...atta boy!

I love this - made my night!

You done good!!

Good for you. I had wood ducks last year so I put in a wood duck house and wouldn't you know it, nothing this year so far.

John, Building some wooduck nesting boxes is on my To do list. This is the 3rd year in a row Ive seen them so they must have a pretty good spot.

Built 3 WD boxes 3 years ago...so far, not a single WD on my pond. I'm doing very well on bluebirds, hatch 4-5 clutches each year, but nada on the WD.

Hooded Mergansers in one of our Woodie boxes this year.

Another neat looking Duck.

very cool

More than one female woodduck may often use the same "dump" box. Last year I was lucky enough to see 15 tumble out of one of my boxes.

Thats pretty neat.Last spring I counted 27 babys with two Adult Females.

When I first read these posts I read it as "woodchucks" and I was sitting here saying to myself, "rescuing woodchucks...mammalian tunnel boring machines....they all have to be crazy! Then I noticed the woodduck nesting box reference and I felt pretty stupid...lol!

Too Funny Bman!!

Knowing me I'd probably rescue some baby woodchucks given the opportunity.

I can't wait to see 15 baby woodchucks tumbling outta the nesting box

The Woodducks are nesting again so we'll have another couple sets in the next few weeks. We saw this years babies about seven weeks ago.

Nice to see them in a full pool going into June.

We put 4 wood duck boxes up in mid Feb and all were nested in. One was "dump" nested. The second round of eggs hatched. Never got to see the ducklings come out of the boxes but got a great pic of them stacked up in it. All 4 boxes produced eggs, and hatches, only got to see ducklings in one of them though. The way I fiqure, there's 25-30 more ducks out there for not a whole lot of effort.

Kiko,
How did you get those pic's

Loving this thread. Good save R&R.

To those of you who have Wood Ducks in the South, do they stay all year, or do they migrate and return?

This all looks very appealing to me.

Ours (WD's) come in February and stay thru about the end of July. Black bellied whistling ducks (which also use boxes) stay thru Sept. or so.

Thanks Sniper.

No problemo.

Our boxes were made with a wooden flap on the side that raises up. Pretty convenient. Stuck my cell phone in and presto. DNR said it wouldn't bother them to check weekly and sure enough it hasn't so far. I jumped 7 woodies off the pond Sat a.m. so they're still here.