Spring Fever

or

WOOD DUCKS ON THE BRAIN !

Spring is around the corner and we are already thinking about the four Wood Duck nest boxes we have at our Camp at Porters Lake, Digby County. Included in this post are some pictures of the nestboxes, plans, installation details, a movie clip from UTUBE (Thanks Hollie), a few URLs for wood duck sites and some wood duck photos borrowed from the WEB. (Bob did a quick search within Flickr and found lots of excellent photos.) With a bit of luck the 'woodies' will return again this year.

Note: Links on this site may not work properly if you are not using MSIE.

Double click to enlarge pics.
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We have nestboxes located at sites 1, 2, 3 and 6. More boxes are ready for the remaining sites when I have an opportunity to install them.

Shown below is a typical sequence for the wood duck nesting cycle. Once the female commences laying her eggs, she will bury the eggs until all are laid, then dig them out and commence incubation. The eggs usual all hatch out at more or less at the same time and the mother will wait for a day or so for the ducklings to 'dry out'. Once that happens, she gives a special call and all the young ones jump out of the nest instinctively. Wood ducks will use cavities in old trees that can be up to 65 feet from the ground. When the young ones jump they will bounce like ping pong balls when they hit the ground. Remarkably, this does seem to not harm them.

If you don't believe us go to:


If the above doesn't work you can use the following url:

http://www.devilducky.com/media/56179/

The 'wood ducks' in this clip are mandarins. They are a close relative to the wood duck; however, the males have much different plumage. The females of both species look similar. This excellent clip is from a David Attenborough documentary. The following picture shows a pair of mandarin ducks on the left and a wood duck pair on the right. (Photo from the University of Michigan web site.) Woodies are native to North America while the mandarins are indigenous to Siberia, China, and Japan.

Nesting sequence.

Plans for a wood duck nest box. This is a bit different from the traditional design in that it has a landing platform and an access hatch that is very water tight.

Details of the access hatch.

A safe way to install netboxes. Install a bracket first and then us a rope to lift up the nestbox. It is a much safer method and far easier when a ladder is being used to put up the nestbox.





Bob cleaning out a nestbox at site #3. (Photos by David Foster)

Bob was given a wood duck carving as a gift from his colleagues when he retired during 2005. It is beautiful, very detailed and a carving that he will always enjoy.





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Some pictures from the WEB


















This is Goose!

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Some WEB sites that have information on Wood Ducks:

Note: Some of these sites may be defunct. I havn't visited them all recently.

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http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/aix/a._sponsa$narrative.htm

http://birds.cornell.edu/birdhouse/bird_bios/speciesaccounts/wooduc.html

There is a wood duck sound file at the following site. Woodies don't quack!

http://www.alabamawaterfowl.org/nestbox2.htm

http://www.birding.com/414wd.asp

http://www.dfw.state.or.us/ODFWhtml/Education/Woodduck.html

http://www.ducks.org/conservation/woodduck_box.asp

http://www.gamebird.com/index.html

http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/i1440id.html

http://el.erdc.usace.army.mil/elpubs/pdf/fwsw4-1.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_Duck

http://www.ffdp.ca/hww2.asp?id=80&cid=7

http://nouveau.home.comcast.net/woodDuck/refs.html

http://www.dccl.org/information/informationpage.htm

http://odc.ncf.ca/index.html

More wood duck clips here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foj8HsCqzi4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmCCAAy9NZE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hvAGO0kLHg

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Our Newest Toy!

I just received my new studio light kit. Photo lighting has always fascinated me and I finally have some gear to play around with. The kit includes 3 monolights, 2 softboxes, 2 umbrellas, reflectors and a honeycomb grid light modifier. The monolights are Alien Bee 1600 units with 640 wattseconds of output. Now all I have to do is learn how to use them properly. Jonathan has experience with this stuff and is showing me the ropes. Genevieve was ok with the procurement until it arrived and we set it up. Her only concern was where to find room to store all this junk. The last photo shows her reaction to the situation.

Double click to enlarge pic.

The first shot with the softboxes.

A closeup. We still have a lot to learn on eyeglass reflections!

Closer in still. Much better lighting this time. Didn’t get rid of the eyeglass reflection completely.

Niko enjoys having his picture taken and fully aproves of the acquisition.

A shot of Jon using the umbrellas. They are a lot easier to setup and use than the softboxes.

A fun shot.

Results with maxium power output from the monolights!

A closeup. The photos of Niko and myself were taken with a Nikon D70s and the photos of Jon were taken with my Nikon D200.

As you can see Genevieve was not happy with this acquisition!