Join trip leader David Garza at 7am at the bulletin board at the corner of Mary Lake Drive and Lakeside Drive for a three hour walk around Mary Lake. Wood Ducks are always expected as well as a variety of other waterfowl, herons, egrets, songbirds and most likely warblers.
“Warblers and Wood Ducks” is the theme of the bird walk at this gem of a park in west Redding. Meet on Thursday, March 9, at 9:00 at the bulletin board at the corner of Lakeside Drive and Mary Lake Drive. We will spend about an hour and a half walking one mile on a cement path. There are no bathrooms. This is the sixth in a series of eight walks, one per month from October through May, exploring City of Redding parks and trails for opportunities to see birds. If it is raining at the site at the start time of the walk, the event will be canceled. Contact triciathebirdnerd@gmail.com for more information.
Warblers and Wood Ducks are some of the usual suspects at this gem of a park in west Redding. Green and Great Blue Herons, Wilson’s Snipe and an array of sparrows add to the cast of characters. Meet at 8:00 at the bulletin board at the corner of Lakeside Drive and Mary Lake Drive. We will spend about an hour and a half walking one mile on a cement path. There are no bathrooms. Contact trip leader Tricia Ford at triciathebirdnerd@gmail.com for more information.
A large island in the Sacramento River caused a small branch of the river to flow by some residential homes and has enabled Harvey and Jeannette Carroll to observe and enjoy a large variety of birdlife, especially waterfowl.
Early every spring a large number of Wood Ducks began visiting the channel below their house and often flew up into the oak trees apparently looking for a large enough hole for a nest.
Wood Ducks are cavity nesters. Harvey got a pattern and made several Wood Duck nest boxes which were soon inhabited and Wood Ducklings were successfully raised. Each year the Carrolls learned a bit more about making the nest boxes safe, but a friend loaned Harvey a “Nestcam” which was hooked up to a small television set and much information was available about the ducks habits.
The Carrolls will show their Wood Duck photos and tell us about their nestbox adventures at our April 14th, 7:00 PM Zoom presentation.
As several groups are doing, we are pre- registering everyone for our upcoming presentations.
This is a very simple procedure. Just go to this link https://bit.ly/3biUhBi and fill out the simple form. You will receive an email confirming your registration. The link for the presentation will be emailed to you on March 8th. We suggest you make a reminder for yourself when you get the email link.
You can also scan the QR code below to fill out the form.
When you login to our Zoom meetings you will be placed into a waiting room until the meeting begins. Participants are muted upon entry but are welcome to unmute themselves before the meeting begins. Once the presentation begins, you can raise your hand to ask questions. A moderator will control the order of your questions.
Wood Duck Female photo courtesy of David Bogener
For those who observe them, it’s small wonder that six of the new gifts offered in The Twelve Days of Christmas are birds! Not mentioned, however, are some of our most stunning winter birds, the ducks.
Wood ducks are the kings of color— green, blue, chestnut, and goldenrod, their beaks and eyes in two shades of vermilion, all set off with bold blacks and whites and decorative plumes and pony tails. The hen ducks are less outlandish, dressed mostly in their camouflage grays, but still sporting a splash of dark aquamarine and a delicate white eye-ring that thins into a teardrop behind the eye.
As their name suggests, wood ducks favor wooded byways. They spend the winter in small flocks, often with just a few friends, resting and feeding in quiet water. They eat mostly plant material—seeds, acorns, berries, and weeds—gathered either in the water or on land. Along about January they pair up. Courting involves mutual preening, and shrill whistles and stretched wing-and-tail dance moves from the male.
Then in early spring the hen wood duck, like only a handful of other duck species, chooses a cavity in a tree to make her nest. She is far too big for woodpecker holes, so she will often lay her 10-15 eggs in the rotted out scar of a fallen branch, usually 30-65 feet up. She will prefer to reuse successful nest sites from prior years. Other passing hens may dump more eggs into her nest, and she will incubate and raise them all.
Once hatched, day-old ducklings face immediate challenges. If their nest-hole is deep in a tree trunk, they might need to climb vertically many feet, up to fifteen, to reach their nest entrance. But they have clawed toes and instinct to help them out. Once reaching the entrance they blithely drop to the ground outside. It’s a long fall but doesn’t seem to faze them. They pop right up and begin to follow their mother to the nearest water, a hike that may be over a mile on their little duckling legs.
In truth, things have gotten easier for wood ducklings. With extensive tree-clearing in the late 1800’s wood duck numbers plummeted. But the ducks readily accepted human-made nesting boxes, and now they are thriving. Most nesting boxes are close to the ground, so ducklings might drop eight feet instead of their historical fifty.
Wood ducks live year-round in wet woodlands along the West Coast and throughout the Eastern US, and will winter in Mexico and nest all along the US/Canada border. Here in the North State look for them in quiet woodland waterways such as those of Battle Creek Wildlife Refuge, Anderson River Park, and Turtle Bay.
Our Education chair Dan Greaney writes for the Wintu Audubon Society and wrote this post.
