I just observed some behavior I've never seen before.? A wood duck hen flew out of one of our wood duck boxes and dropped an egg in the pond!? I ran out there to see if it could be salvaged and it had a hole in it.? I did a little looking around online and found that this has been observed before, and it is believed that flickers and other woodpeckers are the culprits in the egg damaging.? When the eggs are damaged the wood duck hen will remove them from her nest.? Here is where I found the info:https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/wilson/v090n01/p0131-p0132.pdf? I am keeping the egg shell, but sad that it's one less wood duckling for this spring.? Bummer.? Great that they are using the boxes though. I don't think they tried them last year.
-Tina