Leaving the nest box

Been dragging this story out too long, time to wrap it up. In the following video you will see the mother calling the ducklings out of the nest box. Look close and count 18 ducklings hit the water. On another video we found number 19, which had problems getting out of the box. It finally made it and joined the rest.







The following video shows the inside view of the ducklings leaving the nest box. As I did not have the nest box camera in a position to show the ducklings going up to the hole, I used a video from 2007 that showed the exit.





The following photos were taken from about 200 ft. away so they are not too good but you will get the idea what is going on. The mother left the family in the water and went up the bank to see if it was safe to proceed. She had to get the ducklings out of the water as the bass will eat them if given the chance.




















The mother called the little ones up the bank. They disappeared over the hill, and that is the last we saw of them. They probably headed for the stream that is 100 ft away.

Ducklings in the nest

The Ducklings are very eager to leave the nest box, as they are getting thirsty and hungry. At this point they have been hatched approx. 27 hrs. and it is May 2, 09 10:30 AM. They will exit very soon now. I have much editing to do so I will post the results tomorrow.

Wood Ducklings

The hen left the nest for a break before this pic was taken. The quality of the pictures is not too good due to the clouds and rain yesterday. We found out that it is impossible to see the duckling coming out of the shell. The hen keeps the hatching covered. Come back tommorrow to see the ducklings leave the nest. They are only in the nest about 24 hours as the hen does not bring any food or water to them. In the photos look for any wet duckling as it has just hatched.

Ducks are hatching

Ducklings have started to hatch this May 1st. She began setting on eggs on Apr 1st. Started watching monitor today about 7:30 am and looked like nothing was happening, then I seen a movement. We watched and took videos and still pics untill about 4;30 when it was time to go out to eat. Here is a small sampling of the hundreds of pics we took. More to follow tomorrow.


She kept the eggs hatching hidden. We only got a few glimpses. If you watch in upper left hand corner, we think an egg just hatched.