Yesterday as Skye and I were walking around the pond, I happened to look up and I noticed one of my five wood duck houses, which are now more noticeable with the leaves off of the trees. Wood ducks nest up in hollow trees (or wood duck boxes, if available). Of course this time of year the ducks have migrated south, but seeing the nesting box made me again wonder what had happened to the wood duck population that used to mate and nest in the Robson Valley.
Every spring I used to have lots of wood ducks come to my pond (I once took a photo showing 40 of them), most would fly off to nest elsewhere, but I generally had one of two that would hatch their young in my nesting boxes. One spring I was fortunate enough to watch the little fluffy ducklings leap out of their lofty home, down to the earth below where their mother was calling.
For a few years now, I have had no wood ducks at all coming to my pond, and I have heard no one else in the area that had seen any. I can’t help but wonder what happened to them. Did something happen in their southern winter homes, or did they just find someplace better to nest?
It’s a mystery, and I sure miss see those brilliantly colored male ducks and the brown mother duck with her ducklings in a row paddling across my pond.
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I guess you could count yourself lucky to have had them at all. The years that are now, someone else is delighting in them. They can come back just as easily as they left.
ReplyDeleteCould be different crops are planted around there and they aren't as inclined to frequent that area. And if it is fish , maybe you need to restock your pond. :)
They have started planting grain sorghum around here this past year and I am looking forward to seeing what different birds we get now. Maybe more turkeys, who knows.