Wood Ducks Nesting

I'm fairly certain this is the pair who have claimed the pond box as their own. Yesterday afternoon the female went into the box and the male took a five hour nap on top of it. I hurried home from work so I could get a photo but Gena said they both flew away about five minutes before I got home.

I took this photo last week of the duck eggs in the pond nest box. I checked for two successive mornings after I took this photo and it went from four eggs to six and from six to nine which indicated more than one duck is laying in this box.

After the female is done laying eggs she pulls out her own downy breast feathers and mixes them in with the wood chips for extra warmth. This photo was taken two days ago on 5/5/15.

Let the incubation begin!

Comments

A Day in the Coop

I wrote this in a notebook while "babysitting" in the chicken coop on Friday 10/2/15. I'm sitting on the bottom roosting pole in the chicken coop surrounded by six curious, lively baby chicks and one cranky older hen that Robin calls "Godzilla." She's giving them the "evil eye" while scratching and digging in the bedding and tossing it around, trying to scare them. Today, they seem less frightened by her, although they are still wary and scatter if she approaches too close. They're trying to scratch in the shavings just like big chickens; some of them are even flapping up in an attempt to perch on the roosting poles. They're a little shaky, but they'll catch on. We've been watching the babies, trying to sort out individual personalities so we could give them names. Some of them were easy: Amelia Earhart--the blue Ameracauna who was trying to fly at the age of one day, and Maggie--the other blue Ameracauna, a real sweetie who k...

Santa Carvings

It's never too early to think about Christmas, especially if you carve Santas! I recently completed one with a teddy bear, one with a chickadee and lastly, a Santa carved from cottonwood bark. Santa with Chickadee I'm big on birds and one of my favorites is the chickadee so I couldn't wait to incorporate one into a Santa carving. This Santa is carved from basswood, with acrylic paints and finished with two coats of satin varnish and one coat of wax. https://www.etsy.com/listing/235841817/hand-carved-santa-with-staff-and?ref=shop_home_active_3 Cottonwood Bark Santa My cottonwood bark Santa is carved from a piece of bark I found lying along the shoreline of Lake Erie. To give it an extra special rustic look I left some of the bark on the carving. This carving is painted with acrylic paints and finished with two coats of satin varnish and one coat of wax. https://www.etsy.com/listing/236475497/hand-carved-rustic-santa-robin-arnold?ref=shop_home_active_1 ...

The Keetie Factor

Shortly after I wrote my last blog entry, Keetie, my little guinea fowl buddy, and all but one of our chickens were killed. Here is a link to our August Lifestyles 2000 article which is a tribute to this very special bird. Scroll down to page 5 to view the article. http://lifestyles2000.net/pages/aug15/aug15.pdf We still only have the one remaining hen. Her name is Leica and she is currently sitting on an egg that the black silkie laid. I doubt that it hatches but it's worth a try.

Robin Arnold Art

Search This Blog