A year ago a large team of BPQ volunteers spent a day at our George H. Montgomery Sanctuary installing Wood Duck nesting boxes around
Streit’s Pond.
Last week we returned to inspect the boxes for evidence of nesting. We did have some surprises. One box had some small down feathers, another had the variety of feathers shown in the photograph. A third had a number of leaves laid out in a ring. Apparently, that is something
that a duck would do.
Dr.David Bird installed temperature gauges in five boxes and a couple of exterior locations. These take a reading every twelve minutes for a
year. When we recover them next year, we’ll see what we can learn.
Two of the other participants got too close to the creek and went through the ice. Fortunately, Paul Shay and Charlie Nims were on hand and able able to respond quickly and get them back onto solid ice easily enough.
It wasn’t too cold and everyone remained in good spirits. Here is a gallery of photographs taken on the day, which will, we trust, show you what a lot of enjoyment everyone has when volunteering to help with these important tasks
If you are able to ID the feathers, please let us know.
Jane
** To view the images in a full size photo gallery just click on one of the thumbnails below
