Watching our Wood Duck nestcam has continued to entertain. Every
day, a pair of Starlings brings in a truckload of nesting materials
and dumps them atop the accumulated duck eggs. Every day in late
afternoon, I climb the ladder and tear out all the Starling
stuffing. Then, at 8:00 pm, a Starling comes in and looks around the
box, wondering where in the heck her day's labor ended up. Then (for
the last three nights), she (assuming "she"), goes to sleep for the
night in a corner of the box, until a Wood Duck arrives the next
morning to lay an egg and chases her away.

Yesterday there were 16 duck eggs in the box. Today there are 20. I
believe that three different Wood Ducks and one Hooded Merganser laid
eggs today. At one point this morning, there were two Wood Ducks in
the box at once. There are now two Hooded Merganser eggs in the box.

I expect that incubation may begin tomorrow, but I may not see the
actual event because I am heading off to Iceland for a couple days of
volcano-watching, assuming I can get there from here. BTW, today I
heard the first thrush in our neighborhood and the Ospreys have been
back for about a week.

Lee Rentz
Shelton, WA
lee at leerentz.com
http://leerentz.wordpress.com