Shooting competitions kept us out of the sanctuary for six weeks in August and September, a holiday that ended in late September. But don’t get the idea that nothing was happening. First off, Bill and Austin Taverner went shopping. As Bill reported, “Almost everything has now been purchased to complete our 2009 Wood Duck Nesting Box Project. We have enough materials to build at least 25 new boxes. Home Depot cut it up for us for free. We also have the screws, glue, caulking and paint donated by Randall’s.” 

 

The intrepid box builders Mary Lou and Austin posing in the foreground, Bill and Ed working behind. (Photo by Ben Mancini)

Last year the big project was rebuilding our main shed. This year it was the turn of our second shed, the one that houses the Kubota. And again, Ed Lang led the work crew that included Bill, Ben, Austin, Tom Irwin and Mary Lou. Besides replacing all the siding, this shed’s walls were in serious need of straightening. The job was completed successfully and the whole shed received a coat of paint before the snow started to fly.

Looking ahead to next summer, we have serious work to get done on our two lawn tractors, neither of which was working at summer’s end.

Austin has been very efficient and productive this winter and so much work has been done already that his To-Do list is getting really short — and it’s only February.

 

On Valentine’s Day, the work crew checked three of the Kestrel boxes and found all had been used by starlings. The most interesting finding was that the box on the big trees just west of the sheds, a long way from the nearest body of water, was also used by a wood duck and the female had a very successful hatch on top of the starling’s nest.

Later in February, while checking the rest of the kestrel boxes, Bill, Ben and Churchy found evidence of a successful American kestrel hatch in one, also on top of a starling’s nest. There was "white-wash" on the inside of the box and in the flattened nest, which was on top of a starling nest, we found mouse hair, skeletal remains of mice and wings from large dragonflies, along with lots of droppings. 

We were also visited by a red (and white) squirrel that seems to be living in our main shed and chewing everything in sight. It appears to be suffering from mange, hence the large white patches.

We tried to entice the deer to come back by putting out some deer feed, but unlike the snow buntings, the deer weren’t hurrying back. We also refilled our suet feeders and had better, almost immediate, results. It was good to see a pair of red-breasted nuthatches come as soon as we moved away. Then, as we were returning from Innis Point, we saw three wild turkeys around McCabe Bridge. And as Bill put it: “two ‘sharp-eyed’ members (Merrill Smith and Mary Lou) saw a kestrel in the same general area, flying, hovering, and perching on one of the soldier silhouettes, not far from the box that a kestrel had used. That was good news for sure.”

 On the lighter side, one mild day in January, Mary Lou lost her grip and fell off the toboggan onto a damp patch of Ottawa River ice. And on another outing Bill tried to dump himself and Churchy off his snowmobile, quite successfully.

In addition to our duck boxes at the sanctuary, the club also maintains a number of bluebird/swallow boxes both at the sanctuary and on Timm Drive in Bells Corners. Barc Dowden has monitored the Timm Drive boxes for many years. This year he took Tony and Gretchen Denton along to get started with the work. They monitored nine boxes in all. Activity was first seen on June 12 (after one April and one May visit) and last seen on July 3. Bluebirds hatched in one box, and tree swallows used four of the boxes: two had successful swallow hatches, one had a hatch in which the babies died, and in the fourth one egg was laid which did not hatch.

On August 17 we checked and cleaned all the boxes. In October and November Tony Denton and others carried in 11 new boxes and mounted them on metal poles in preparation for 2010. It was a challenge to find enough soil above rock to pound them in. They were left to weather over the winter and attract bluebirds — we hope — next spring.

  “Bluebird” (Tree Swallow) Boxes 2009 at Ottawa Duck Club

by Gretchen Denton

We monitored these between April 17 and September 25. Nest building had started by May 8, and most activity was over by June 26. 

 We presumed there had been hatches when either babies were seen or a dirty nest was left. The paired boxes (14 pairs) had 14 hatches. Two single boxes in the fields had babies on June 12, and a single near the Lilac Pond was dirty so apparently had had a hatch. Out of the 12 single boxes along the road, there were probably seven or eight hatches.

 

As expected, all pairs had one active and one inactive box, with one exception: on June 5, box 417 had babies while the box paired with it (324) had eggs.

 One box (313) appeared to have two broods: babies on June 5 and eggs on June 19 and July 3. Since the boxes were not checked again until September, we don’t know whether the second brood hatched.

 

When boxes were cleaned out, a total of four dead adult birds were found but no dead babies. It appears that the cold and rainy June did not affect them.

 

Wrens’ nests with some white cottony material, probably insect cocoons, in them were found in four boxes, twice in one of them — first cleaned out on June 26 but another nest built, discovered on October 2. These are more wrens’ nests than we’ve seen in the last few years.

 

Nest boxes for bluebirds

by Tony Denton

The quest for a nesting box which will attract bluebirds continues. Off Timm Drive there has long been a moderately successful chain of bluebird boxes which were maintained by Barc Dowden. When asked by Barc to take over the chain I felt strongly that as the boxes were old, they should be replaced, especially as the position of the boxes differed from the recommendations of the Ontario Eastern Bluebird Society, in several respects.

 

Tony, Ben and Tom building bluebird boxes (Photo by Gretchen Denton)

 

With help from Tom and Ben, 12 new boxes of slightly new design, made during the summer as a 50-box construction project, were installed on poles, in pairs. (The last one is still to be done.)

 What the result will be will not be known until spring and summer. The old boxes have been left in place, where last year one of them — an old box with an unattached lid, low on a rotting post beside a busy road — produced the only successful hatch late in the summer.

 

One worrying development is the news that the city is planning a large infrastructure project that will see a lot of construction activity on Timm Drive in the summer of 2010. How this will affect the bluebirds and other wildlife in the area remains to be seen.

 

Peephole experiment by Tony Denton

When doing weekly checks on wood duck nesting boxes I had always felt guilty about opening the box to check on activity, because of the disturbance caused to a sitting hen. In order to test the possibility of checking a box to see if a hen was sitting, without opening the access door, I installed in ten boxes, a peephole such as can be mounted on a house door to see who is outside. (see: The Nestbox No. 17, March 2006, ed.)

There were many difficulties, in particular locating the peephole at a position both comfortable for the observer and where the sitting bird could be seen. Often, getting myself into position to look through the eyepiece made more disturbance, by shaking the box or rattling the cone-guard, than opening the door would have. Opening the flap over the peephole also resulted in the bird being startled by the beam of light suddenly shining on it. It quickly became obvious that this experiment was one best forgotten.

 

 

Viewing blind

Plans are afoot to build a blind in 2010 with Tony Denton taking the lead. Here’s his proposal: “For a long time I have been interested in building a blind from which we can watch the activity on Dike Pond without disturbing the birds, and recently others have also expressed interest in building one, so I have drawn up rough plans based on wood which I have available. The main item I do not have is plywood, and it would take seven or eight sheets to enclose the basic 4ft X 4ft frame.” Some details remain to be worked out, such as how many people to accommodate, whether they should be able to sit or stand, and how to seal the box against invaders, such as raccoons, porcupines and mosquitoes (good luck with that one, ed.)

 

 

Speaking of raccoons (Photo by Mary Lou Porter)

CHURCHY’S COLUMN

Ontario Reptile and Amphibian Atlas

First there was the Ontario Breeding Birds Atlas, now Ontario Nature is working on a Reptile and Amphibian Atlas. For anyone interested in participating in this project, here’s some information from Joe Crowley of Ontario Nature.

 “Ontario Nature’s new Ontario Reptile and Amphibian Atlas program is nearing the end of its first year, and we need your help to compile as many observations of Ontario’s reptiles and amphibians as possible! We are looking for observations of all reptile and amphibian species in Ontario, from any time (last summer or 10 years ago). Observations can be reported using our new online reporting form, an Excel reporting form or mail-in cards, all of which are available on our website at: ontarionature.org/herpetofaunal_atlas.html.

In March, the online "Atlas of Reptiles and Amphibians of Ontario" will be available on our website, and will include descriptions of all of Ontario’s reptiles and amphibians, photos, range maps, information about the program and how to get involved, and much more!

 

If you are interested in receiving e-mail newsletters, event notifications, and other updates about the atlas program, please register by submitting an observation or clicking on the "register" link on our website. If you would like to schedule a presentation or workshop for your group, or if you have any questions, please e-mail Joe Crowley at joec@ontarionature.org “

 

Calendars: Ben and Bill are always looking for ways to get more money out of our pockets, so in December they got together and produced a beautiful calendar of 13 photos taken at the sanctuary. We hope to make this an annual publication, so watch for an announcement in the next Nest Box.

 

Finally, thanks to Gerry Lee for providing five more bags of shavings.

 

 

Well, here we are. The new site location is in full effect. The old site is still up and running for a while with a redirect to the new location here at www.ottawaduckclub.com. Much as the same way as you would redirect your regular mail there is actually a usual process and/or etiquette. (more…)

As promised I’m hoping to get this site upgrade fully functional by the New Year. All that is left is to upload the older NestBox letters and a few aesthetic changes. Any comments on the layout and new format are welcome and appreciated. You can contact me with your questions and suggestions even use the comment form on this site.

I’m hoping members can become more active about posting news on the ODC homepage. Perhaps this page can be used to recap recent outings and show off our lists of accomplishments? It could be especially interesting to highlight wildlife sightings and encounters. For photos, the Flickr photo Gallery is still up and running but members can post their images from around the sanctuary just as easily right here now with this new system.

Cheers
r.

Experimenting with trying to get the navigation and the rest of the site features to look like they should. The default setup just doesn’t go with this site at all.

It took a while to figure out how this system works but things seem to be getting clearer now and I’m able to get some real progress.

Stay Tuned….More to come.
r.