This is the time of year when our local waterways – rivers, streams, lakes, and ponds – really begin to come to life. The backyard pond on our Northbrook homestead is no exception where one of those early signs of spring is the return of a pair of wood ducks determined to set up housekeeping in one of the two nesting boxes we erected years ago.
The pair made this year’s first springtime appearance here on March 10 when we observed them paddling around the pond and taking turns exploring one of the nesting boxes. Wood ducks have been nesting there for several years, affording my family the opportunity observe and photograph them while monitoring their pond-bound exploits.
The wood duck drake is by far the most handsome of our American ducks followed by the pintail, a distant second. It’s always a pleasure to photograph the wood duck drake and hen when they arrive here. Since the nesting box is 30 yards from our back deck, I’ll use my Nikon D7500 SLR fitted with a 150-600mm Sigma zoom lens to photograph them through our back window. At 600mm, that zoom pulls those images up close and personal with distinct clarity as I snap away.
This spring we also had a pair of mallard ducks checking out the pond. In terms of ducky personalities, the mallards proved themselves far more mellow and tolerant of humans than the wood ducks. When I strolled along the bank of the pond the other day, the mallards were content to stay put, leisurely swimming around at the opposite end. The wood ducks, however, are much more skittish and squeamish when it comes to putting up with people. If I so much as open the door to the back deck overlooking the pond, they will instantly launch themselves into the sky as their distinctively whirring wings carry them off to distant parts unknown.
But once the pond is left undisturbed, the pair would return later in the day or early the next morning in order to perform their parenting duties of tending to a clutch of eggs sheltered in the nesting box. Although this has been an almost annual ritual for the past twenty years, in all that time there was just one occasion when we spotted any ducklings emerging from the nesting box. It was a bright sunny morning early in May a few years back when my sharp-eyed wife alerted me to the fact that the waters just below the nesting box were suddenly teeming with adorable little wood duck ducklings, 15 of them in fact, being shepherded by the attentive wood duck hen.
I was eager to take a few photos of the brood, but first had to run an errand to our local Landhope store. Alas, when I returned half an hour later, the little ducklings and their mother had already fled the scene. What had happened? Where had they gone? Those questions were auspiciously answered later that same day when our next-door neighbors, while kayaking on the Brandywine Creek, spotted a delegation of 15 wood duck ducklings and their mother cavorting just downstream from the location of our pond.
It didn’t take much speculation to surmise that the duck family they encountered was the same one that had occupied our pond (however briefly) that same morning. That meant that the hen, sensing the vulnerability of her children staying for an extended time on our small pond, immediately gathered them up, emerged from the pond, led them through our back yard, over a set of railroad tracks, across Northbrook Road, and into the welcoming waters of the West Branch of the Brandywine Creek. Apparently, they had all survived a hazardous trek of about 100 yards while avoiding assorted obstacles including trains, cars, trucks, foxes, and birds of prey along the way.
Our sudden epiphany of how quickly those newly hatched wood ducks had abandoned our pond made us wonder how many other seasons in the past the same thing had happened when we may have never noticed the ducklings during the fleeting window of time that they were still on the pond. As a result, it’s impossible to gauge the nesting success of our backyard wood ducks over the years.
Unfortunately, the nesting success of the mallards on the pond has been more problematic, no doubt accounting for how infrequently they attempt it. Only twice in twenty-five years have mallards nested on the pond, once along the bank and once in a nesting platform I’d erected. On both occasions raccoons were the villains, raiding the nest, scaring off the parent birds, and devouring the clutch of eggs before any of them had a chance to hatch – a sad state of affairs.
And while wood ducks and mallards are regular springtime visitors to our pond, Canada geese rarely make an appearance. Despite the fact that our stretch of the Brandywine Valley is oversaturated with geese, we’ve only observed them at the pond two or three times in the past quarter century. I suspect the main reason is that our pond is surrounded by thick stands of tall trees that make it difficult for geese to navigate the narrow flight patterns it would take to land on and launch from the pond.
But another very large and feathered frequent visitor here is the great blue heron, a predator that, despite its lengthy wingspan, has no problem traversing the tangle of tree limbs on its way to and from the pond. These herons show up almost daily to snack on the bass, bluegills, green frogs, and bullfrogs that reside in the pond. Although these birds are pretty bold, they’ll depart post haste once our English springer spaniel is on the loose.
But meanwhile, the question of the day remains: Will this year’s edition of the nesting wood ducks succeed in hatching a brood of ducklings or not? We’ll keep a close eye out for hatchlings in the weeks to come but it’s more than likely we will never know.
MENTORED YOUTH TROUT DAY ON DECK
Saturday, March 30, is a welcome date on the outdoor calendar where young anglers and their mentors are permitted to fish approved trout waters from 8:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. a week prior to opening day. Youth anglers need a Mentored Youth Permit OR a Voluntary Youth Fishing License from the Fish and Boat Commission and to be accompanied by a licensed adult angler to participate. With their License or Permit, they can take a total of two trout (combined species) with a minimum length of 7 inches. Adult anglers are prohibited from possessing trout. Pennsylvania’s regular statewide trout season opens a week later on April 6. More about that in next week’s column.
BLACK SQUIRREL UPDATE
Last week’s column about black squirrels generated a small avalanche of fan mail. Although the column opined about how rare black squirrels are in our area, a number of folks in Delaware and Montgomery Counties took exception and wrote to say that they’ve encountered pockets of black squirrels right here in their neck of Penn’s Woods. Emails included this one from a PhD. “As a zoologist I found your recent article about our Sciurus carolinensis melanistic phase in The Reporter interesting. Your assessment of their range though needs an update. I live in Lansdale, Montgomery County. In the last year or so a population of black gray squirrels have been seen in an area along Orvilla Road between Welsh Road and the Cowpath in Hatfield. I have seen them myself. This is just an FYI. I enjoy your columns in the Reporter. Keep us informed.”
Tom Tatum is the outdoors columnist for the MediaNews Group. You can reach him at tatumt2@yahoo.com.
