Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Where did all those eggs come from?

Wood duck watchers,
We hope to have a live feed soon. Please be patient as we make sure the system can handle the load of viewers that will want to view the hen live. We have posted two videos for everyone to see .
The first video shows the hen as she arrives to an apparently empty nest. It is a safe to say that she has been in this house sometime this Spring because there is some down on the wood chips. I first noticed downat the beginning of April. During the previous week both Rick Miller, renewable energy consultant, and I had both been in the house and not seen an egg. Rick had been working most of Thursday and never noticed a duck or any activity. He was actually working on the wiring so the camera could be powered up. After Rick left the recording started and there is no record of the duck appearing until she showed up at 5:52 right in front of my eyes. Unless she had eggs buried in the wood chips she laid some eggs Friday morning. The video clearly shows eggs appearing and the hen does make a wiggling movement numerous times that leads one to believe she might be laying an egg.
My students think she laid between 4-6 eggs. We do know that she left at 8:47 and did not return until Saturday morning at 5:54. We are recording every second and I can look back to see what happened at any time. She only stayed on Saturday until 7:51. I need to look back and see if anymore eggs were laid. I had to add a cedar box over the wiring compartment and personally counted 8 eggs in the house. So the great question is whether they were all laid from Friday to Saturday morning. This would go against conventional duck research. Usually, ducks only lay one egg a day. Please take a look at the video and share your opinion.

3 comments:

  1. Love it! I try and check in on her every day!
    Thank you!

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  2. Hi Aaron, we have enjoyed watching and learning from your site. We are doing a similar project at Park Rapids and Circle of Life Schools in Northern MN.
    Since the duck is capable of only laying one egg a day, you may have had more than one one woody (egg dumping) in the nest or as you stated an unobserved egg hiding during your counts.
    We are planning to build a larger curriculum around our program and would be interested in partnering with you.
    Thanks!
    Joe Courneya, Where's Woody Science Team

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  3. 9:03AM MAY 28TH -- all the little ones left the nest with Momma.

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