All About The Wooden Boxes On The Shores Of Union Bay

Here is a recent post from the Union Bay Watch Blog published by Larry Hubbell, long-time local photographer and birder. 

Here also is an in-depth article about Larry and his work.


It Takes A Village

The Box Building Team - from left to right: Tiffany Lloyd, Larry Hubbell, Kathy Hartman, Chris Kessler and Dave Galvin. 

The team mission is to increase the number of wood ducks on Union Bay, raise awareness of nature in the city and provide opportunities for University of Washington students to study and learn about cavity nesting birds. 

Thank you all for your hard work and assistance!

Chris Kessler installing box #1.

If you spend time around Union Bay you may have noticed the large elevated boxes appearing near the water's edge. With the support of David Zuckerman, Manager of Horticulture, and the University of Washington Botanical Gardens, the new nest boxes are being situated in what we hope are optimal nesting locations. 

Dave Galvin installing box #4.

In the spring, our box building team is hoping Union Bay wood ducks will find and use these boxes to shelter their eggs during the process of incubation. 

A female wood duck with two male suitors.

Wood ducks have sharp 'tree-climbing' claws which help them to land and nest in trees, unlike mallards, gadwalls and most other ducks. 

Sadly, wood ducks are unable to build their own nest cavities. Each spring, female wood ducks spend a great deal of time searching through the trees for appropriately-sized nest sites. I have watched them stick their heads into rather tiny holes - like the ones in this snag. Apparently wood ducks do not have great visual skills when it comes to mentally measuring the size of a potential nest site. 

It appears their learning strategy is simply trial-and-error. Sometimes they fit, sometimes they don't. Wood ducks depend primarily on woodpeckers and occasionally nature, through broken limbs and tree rot, to create their nesting sites. You can read more about the competition for prime sites in last spring's post titled, The Housing Crisis.

Decades ago forest surrounded Union Bay. Interspersed among the living trees would have been a number of standing dead trees. These snags would have provided plenty of nesting cavities for wood ducks. Much of that original forest still stands around Union Bay but it is now in the form of human habitation and is not particularly useful to the ducks.

Manmade nest boxes provide a safe and functional alternative which will hopefully help with the restoration of our local wood duck population. Union Bay appears to have plenty of food for wood ducks, which leads us to believe nest sites are the limiting factor in their reproduction.

Young wood ducks are highly precocious.In the first day after hatching they climb out of the nest, tumble to the ground, follow their mother to water and begin feeding themselves. The screen inside the box is to help newly hatched wood ducks climb up and out of the box.

How many wood duck ducklings do you see in this photo?

Their mother will attempt to provide awareness and some protection from danger but the brood sizes can be quite large and survival is really a numbers game. Ultimately, it comes down to more nest sites equal more ducklings, more ducklings equal more wood ducks and more wood ducks equal more ducklings - if there are adequate nest sites. (I think I see portions of ten different ducklings in the photo.)

Tiffany Lloyd installing box #7.

Tiffany is the first UW student to take an interest in our Union Bay wood ducks and specifically in this project. We are hoping her research, and that of other students as well, will help us learn better ways to live in harmony with wood ducks and nature in general.

We have built ten boxes and hope to have them all installed before spring somewhere around Union Bay. You might want to challenge yourself to see how many of the ten you can find. The easiest way to find them is by boat however almost all can be seen from land - if you try hard enough. Note: Only seven are currently installed.

One of the most challenging aspects of the installation process was trying to select sites which will work well for the wood ducks while not providing easy access for other creatures. Specifically creatures which would love to eat the eggs or utilize the boxes for their own nests. The list includes eastern gray squirrels, Norway rats, raccoons, muskrats and others. The large black pipes are designed to keep creatures from climbing up to the nest boxes and the distance from other vegetation is designed to keep them from dropping or jumping onto the boxes. We also must deal with the potential invasions by european starlings - in which case we may have to board up the boxes for a time. 

This is the part where we could really use your help. Particularly in the spring if you see a creature other than a wood duck entering one of the boxes, please let me know. We may need to adjust our defensive strategy. My email is ldhubbell@comcast.net. 

By the way, there is a single large number printed in the wood directly under each box. It should be easily visible with binoculars. Please note this number in your correspondence. It will greatly simplify our communications.

Thank you for your help. It really does take a village to live in harmony with nature.