Carl Krag, Gaby Schmitt and I checked all eight boxes last week and found that wood ducks had nested in four of them.  (Carl also counted 32 wood ducks on the Celery Farm’s Lake Appert in the past week.)

This is the first year we have not had to rely on the wood duck nestboxes on Lake Appert. The traditional wooden boxes could only be accessed in the winter when the lake was frozen, and most had fallen into disrepair for various reasons.

The new boxes are revolutionary because of their design and construction materials. I asked Scott Weston – who designed the squirrel-resistant nestboxes that are featured in The Screech Owl Companion that he and I recently co-authored – to enlarge the design slightly for wood ducks.

Scott also suggested that we use a new building material, Acre Board, made of upcycled rice hulls. The design calls for a steeply pitched roof so squirrels slide off when they jump atop it, and all surfaces are hard and smooth, making access exceedingly difficult for squirrels, raccoons, and other predators. It's expensive but long-lasting.

Aside from signs of predation by starlings in one box – several unhatched eggs had been punctured – we saw no evidence of predators.

A big thank you to everyone who helped with this ground-breaking project, from selecting the locations for the nestboxes to helping put them up.

Here's a post from seven years ago, when all of the wood duck boxes were on the lake.

https://www.celeryfarm.net/2017/12/wood-duck-nest-boxes-ready-for-next-season.html