Three springs ago, we attached a pair of "wood duck" nest
boxes to a bigleaf maple growing next to the small lake
where we live. Although we've had wood ducks occasionally
checking out the box, they've never nested there. During
the last two springs one box has been occupied by starlings
(boo! hiss!), but the other box has hosted hooded
mergansers. We are not sure if young hoodies ever fledged
from the box, but it has been fascinating to watch the daily
patterns of the merganser female (the male disappears soon
after egg laying begins).

A week ago the hooded merganser pair came every day and the
female went into the nest box for about 15 minutes each
morning. Then that pattern abrubtly stopped; and we had no
idea why.

This morning, since dawn, a western screech owl has been
sitting inside the box, with its head sticking out the hole.
I guess that explains why the hoodies haven't been coming.

On another subject: a week ago we watched a red-breasted
sapsucker drilling holes in several trees, then staying
right there for hours feeding at the small holes. While
Karen was working sawing tree limbs and clearing brush, on
sapsucker fed undisturbed--just ten feet away from her.

Lee Rentz
lee at leerentz.com