Three days after I first discovered more than two dozen of them, there are only six Wood Duck chicks in the pond now. They seem bigger, but I’m sure they are still highly vulnerable to predation, even with a very alert parent on guard duty. I managed to sneak up on them again, using a lot of tree foliage and dead branches as a hide. When I first saw the ducklings, they were widely spread out in the pond, but a signal from mom when she saw me made them move over toward her immediately.


These are all of the ducklings that I saw, and the other hen was not on this pond, or the other two ponds. So, she may have lost all of her chicks and left.
This is mother Wood Duck’s attempt to hide her chicks. Now that I see how Wood Ducks use the vegetation alongside the pond, it looks like drooping branches of willow make ideal screens for protection, at least from bipedal observers. But when I circled around (quietly) behind this willow, the ducks had moved to the opposite side of the pond for a mid-morning nap and preen in the sun.

I’ll go back in a couple of days and see if any are left. I hope so. It would be nice to have Wood Ducks nesting here every year.
Like this:
Like Loading...