A while back the
US Fish & Wildlife Service installed wood duck boxes down on the Carson River at the nursery. They have been monitoring the boxes for quite a few weeks, and yesterday the first of the ducklings appeared.
Wood Ducks have been known to be in the valley, but the folks at Fish and Wildlife are trying to track their numbers and see exactly what areas they frequent the most. The majority of the boxes were made by the Boy Scouts as part of their projects, and the boxes are now installed all around our valley. We are lucky to have three on the river, but this year only one had babies. This last Sunday morning when I got to work I walked out back to turn the sprinklers on the new lawn area in Nana's Garden, and got a small startle when I looked down and saw someone standing on a ladder in the river. I am not exactly sure how, but after watching the nesting boxes for the last week the biologists had pretty much pin pointed exactly to the hour when the ducklings would hatch. The first ones to hatch were taken out and tagged through their webbed feet, and then placed back in the box. I yelled back up to the nursery for Ashley to hurry down, and she got to hold one of the babies while the others were being tagged. They will leave the nest in a day or so, hoping out through the hole in the front of the box to begin their journey. Ahhhhh nature!
A while back the US Fish & Wildlife Service installed wood duck boxes down on the Carson River at the nursery. They have been monitoring the boxes for quite a few weeks, and yesterday the first of the ducklings appeared. Wood Ducks have been known to be in the valley, but the folks at Fish and Wildlife are trying to track their numbers and see exactly what areas they frequent the most. The majority of the boxes were made by the Boy Scouts as part of their projects, and the boxes are now installed all around our valley. We are lucky to have three on the river, but this year only one had babies. This last Sunday morning when I got to work I walked out back to turn the sprinklers on the new lawn area in Nana's Garden, and got a small startle when I looked down and saw someone standing on a ladder in the river. I am not exactly sure how, but after watching the nesting boxes for the last week the biologists had pretty much pin pointed exactly to the hour when the ducklings would hatch. The first ones to hatch were taken out and tagged through their webbed feet, and then placed back in the box. I yelled back up to the nursery for Ashley to hurry down, and she got to hold one of the babies while the others were being tagged. They will leave the nest in a day or so, hoping out through the hole in the front of the box to begin their journey. Ahhhhh nature! 
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