South Carolina Wood Duck Box Work

P

Paul Taylor

Active member
I love seeing Mr. Anthony's posts on his work with wood duck nesting boxes! It's awesome to see others share in the responsibility of "putting back" for others to enjoy wildlife.

I actively maintain boxes during nesting season here in SC since ducks have ample time to produce multiple broods. Cleaning old eggs and debris out of the nesting boxes after "jump day" and adding new cedar shavings has increased the number of successful hatches each Spring. This year has been tough tho. High water and a damaged predator guard allowed a couple Black Rat snakes to access the box on 2 of my boxes. (We are taking the boat out and raising these boxes today. I also have a good many dump boxes this season so many eggs will be lost due to it being impossible for one hen to incubate 30 eggs.

The stark reality is we do our best to provide ideal habitat and nature still has a cruel way about her.

SUCCESS! I count the empty eggshells to determine hatch numbers.
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Opening a nesting box finding a 5 - 6 foot Black Rat snake is disappointing.

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Snakes are released unharmed.

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I have 5 "dump" boxes with hens sitting on an average of 25 + eggs per box. My record is 22 hatched out of one dump box but I'm sure the hen had a tough time with that many ducklings.

View attachment Dump 2.JPG
 
Steve, a good source for duck bx. posts is your local Dept. of Transportation. They,ll have plenty of either bent metal sign posts or broken 4 x 4,s. In my years with MDOT I donated some to local D.U. and Md. Wood Duck Initiative chapters for projects. The metal posts can be cut off at bend and a length of 2 x 4 bolted to it w/bx. attached after driving post into bottom. The longer lengths of 4x4 may be a little harder to come by but sometimes they,ll have a few bowed posts not suitable for sign post installation. Just explain your cause and ask to look thru their disposal area for those materials and they might be able to help you out.
 
Here's how we set our boxes down here in SC. Our DNR is testing out using U bolts and galvanized poles but I am worried that Black Rat snakes will be able to climb the pole. A black rat snake can scale the bare side of a tree or brick wall.

Yesterday afternoon went as planned! I was able to get some help and the right equipment to install some new posts, predator guards and boxes . A friend and his two sons came out and enjoyed a couple hours on the water working to "put back". We use 4 x 4 treated posts and this time I installed them high enough so snakes can't reach them from the water.


View attachment Sunday work 1.jpgView attachment Sunday work 3.jpgView attachment Sunday work 4.jpgView attachment Sunday work.jpg
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I frequently am moved to consider flipping politicians at the national level over on their backs to check them for belly scutes as well! Was there a cone around the post that held the nest box with the rat snake in it?
 
Yes predator guard was in place. We have had incredibly high water and these snakes were 5-6 feet long. They made it over the predator guard on one box and underneath a storm damaged another guard.
 
P Taylor

Your doing a wonderful job my friend. Dam snakes, you can only do your best. Mother nature does the rest. High water does destroy many boxes here on the Hudson River too. But you just try something different to make it work. So many people on here have done so much. We should all be very proud for doing are part to give back. Your always going to lose eggs and ducks. God wants the other creators to eat also. But trust me! your helping out a whole lot. One healthy box six to sixteen eggs some hens some males. If they make it and mate the following year. Then my friend, we are talking about wood ducks in good numbers. Never look at the ones that don't work. Look at the ones you helped bring life to a family of woodies. If we could help all waterfowl the way we can help wood ducks. Then the population of ducks would never be in trouble. Thanks for the great photos.
 
In my area I think snakes do most damage to nests located over water. Lots of bxs that Md. Wood duck Initative have put up guard is so close to water mr. snake simply uses it as a boarding ramp during a high water event. This probably partially due to post sinking in farther sometimes. Other times from bx getting a lean over to it from ice pushing on posts. Bxs located on trees don,t stand a chance here. Always interesting to pop bx. open and find a slithery inhabitant at the dining table!
 
My 1 year old chocolate lab got a bit of an education with this snake. This snake was preparing to shed his skin and it's eyes were clouded over so it was striking at everything. When the pup was giving it a sniff while I encouraged him to "leave it", it popped the pup on the nose, which is all this pup needed to know to leave snakes alone.

Here's a short video of the release, probably a 5 footer or more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os6hxYsjqQM
 
Find some other people that love ducks as much as us. Throw a BQ on and there you go. People love food and will almost do anything for it. Feed them and they will come.
 
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