Watch for the hatch. Spring duckcams go live in Tri-Cities area
Wood duck hens are starting to nest in the Tri-Cities area and are ready for their closeups.
The Richland Rod and Gun Club has about 450 nest boxes in the Tri-Cities, Wash., area, some of them made by schoolchildren.
The club maintains web cameras in a few of them to give the public a window into the life of wood duck hens and their offspring near the Yakima River.
The highlight is the spring “jump” when the ducklings leap to the ground below the box with their mother’s encouragement.
Wood ducks don’t feed their young, so the morning after hatching the ducklings must leave the nest in search of food, said Dale Schielke, who leads the club’s project.
So far this year, Camera 1 is trained on a hen with about 12 eggs, by the last count a couple of days ago, and Camera 4 is watching a hen with about 15 eggs.
She had to tussle with a competing hen for the nest box, with her victory caught on video.
Both hens have been tagged, which could mean they’ve returned to use the same box where they hatched ducklings in the past.
Occasionally, another species of bird will use the boxes. Last year a screech owl was on livestream raising owlets. Occasionally, a kestrel pair will take up residence.
Sometimes starlings will invade the boxes, but they are discouraged by having the nesting materials they gather removed until they move along to find a different nesting site.
The livestreams can be watched on YouTube at the Wood Duck Project channel at bit.ly/WoodDuckProject.
People also can email Schielke at DahliaLou@msn.com to be put on a list for email notification of anticipated duckling jump times.
Schielke expects the first jump on a duckcam to be in mid May.
This story was originally published April 6, 2022 at 5:00 AM.