Quote:
Originally Posted by tis
For years we had a box for the wood ducks but the hooded merganzers took it over. One year in June, I had the very exciting experience of seeing nine of the babies drop out of the box to the water as mommy was kicking them out of the house. The box disappeared a couple of years ago (with the ice I think) and we never replaced it.
|
That's a very common problem with wood duck boxes, many of them get taken over by hooded mergansers. I used to put out and check 75 boxes a year at different wetland locations in southern NH. When we checked and cleaned them in the winter it was easy to tell how many had been taken over by the color of the cracked shell. Merganser eggs are glossy white whereas wood duck eggs are beige in color.
Dan