By Cecilia Antholz, Nemaha County Coordinator

I have seven wood duck houses located on a 14-acre NRD pond in our pasture.

 I was thrilled to find 10 wood duck eggs in one house and 14 in another. Two houses had nesting starlings; starlings kept throwing out the wood shavings in two others; and the seventh house had five medium-sized spotted brown eggs. At first when we attempted to check on the brown eggs, the mother stayed put on the nest facing away from us so that we were unable to determine what kind of bird we had.

On the next visit our trusty blue heeler Jesse was along and sitting right under the entrance of the house. The mother bird must have sensed this, because when I opened the door, the mother flew out and dove accusingly at the dog. She had a banded, rust colored tail and back, with pointed wings. After checking my bird book I decided it must be a Kestrel. We never saw the mother or father again but did manage to photograph the babies at two stages during their development. It is amazing how fast they grew. From the downy stage to feathers and streaks under their eyes, took just over a week. Those parents must have been busy feeding their young ones. When photographing the babies we found part of an uneaten wing in the house. We dangled the wing above their beaks and one attempted to eat from it as the others hissed in defense. All the babies fledged and from time to time we see them sitting on the power lines.

The aforementioned wood ducks fledged also, although we have never spotted them on the pond after that. And within a couple of days, the starlings had all the wood chips and egg caps thrown out all around the house.