When I looked inside the vacated wood duck box yesterday, I was surprised for two reasons.

   1. There were no unhatched wood duck eggs, and the nest was incredibly neat, with a faint layer of duckling down.

   2. There was a dead bird in the box -- but not a duckling. It appeared to be a young grackle.

   (The photo is below at bottom of post; it's nothing terribly horrible, but the squeamish are forewarned.)

   How the young grackle got there is a mystery. Any ideas?

    Strangely, there was only one egg shell in the box, even though there had been nine wood ducklings.

    I am told that the babies and mother wood duck nibble on the eggshells for nourishment before heading out. So why wasn't that egg touched?

    All theories welcome.

    I cleaned out the nesting boxes yesterday, not quite sure what to expect.

    When I opened the owl box two years ago after two screech owls had had an unsuccessful nest (or so I thought at the time), the bottom of the box was a sopping-wet mess filled with feathers.

    This year, the bottom of the nesting box reminded me more of the bottom of a chicken coop, with the smell of ammonia and lots of manure.

   The bottom of the box, once a pristine collection of wood chips, was now  Yuksville. The chips had absorbed the owlets' bodily functions but not the stench.

   Once again, there was an abundance of feathers, but I knew that going in because of the screech owl cam.

    From the bedraggled assortment of feathers, I could tell that the owls like to eat starlings and an occasional woodpecker.

   There was at least one blue jay feather, which surprised me, since you'd think blue jays would be too big.

   The collection of feathers served as a reminder of why the other birds hate owls so much.

    In all the hubbub over the owlets and wood ducklings, I sort of lost track of the robin's nest in the side yard.

   When Jerry the photographer and I went to photograph the empty nests this morning, we discovered three baby robins being fed by their mom.

   Didn't want to disturb the family, so I only took a few shots with a zoom.

   Mom would fly up to the neighbor's roof (above) before flying in to feed the babies.

   What an ending to the past seven days: 4 owlets, 9 wood ducklings and at least 3 baby robins.

    Found a real surprise in the wood duck box.

    More on that later.

     Yesterday around 10 a.m., while I was on an assignment for The Record, the wood duck babies started jumping from their nesting box.

     Patty and Jerry Barrack, my friend the photographer, were by the window to see it.

   I hope to share one of Jerry's photos with you next week.

    In all, nine duckling made the leap -- that's the same number of baby wood ducks as in the children's book I did with Jerry and Doug Goodell, "Duck Enough To Fly."

   The nine ducklings immediately disappeared into the understory of the back yard.  Mrs. Wood Duck was no doubt nearby but out of sight.

    The week's tally:

    Owl box:  4 owlets left home over 4 days

    Duck box: 9 ducklings left home over three minutes

    Not bad for a week's work.

    None will return to the box any time soon, if ever.

    There is the enticing possibility that one might move in as an adult and raise a family of their own -- on video-camera, I hope. :-)

        I plan to take a breather for a day or two, and will post again with some rarely seen photos and a nifty new project. Not to be missed.

   Stay tuned!

    And thanks for joining me on that neat ride with the screech owl family.

   This morning just after sunrise I walked into the Celery Farm, past the empty screech-owl nesting box, and over to the Warden's Watch.

    Above and below are a couple of the scenes I saw.

    Not only were the owlets fortunate to make it through incubation and nesting, but they also have an incredible playground.

    And so do we.