Nature Study: bird boxes, birds and their young

May 10th was Daniel's Nature Study group's last field trip--observing a handful of bird boxes along American River. Jerry, a retired Botany professor, volunteered his time and expertise to lead the group inspecting the bird boxed, which he had made and installed and maintained over the years. What a fun and educational trip!

We saw the following birds in their nests: tree swallow, wood duck, and barn owl. 

In this bird boxes, six juvenile barn owls (I only saw five) hissing at each observer when we took turn peeking into the box.

The last bird box we checked on belongs to another barn owl family. About 10 seconds after Doc put the ladder on the box, an adult barn owl emerged from the opening (good capture of the moment Daniel!) and flew right off. According to Doc, this meant that the eggs were not hatched yet. If there were baby owls in the nest, the parent owl will not leave even if disturbed by observers.

Our young naturalists

The kids got to inspect some unhatched wood duck eggs on the pebble beach. In three of the unhatched and abandoned eggs, we saw close-to-full-term ducklings. Doc (Jerry) explained why they were not hatched. Kind of sad that these duckling were so close to get out off the shell but did not make it.

All the bird boxes are high up on the tree trunks so Doc had us use the ladder he carried with him on our walk. On the first two climbs, James was a bit nervous and I had to go right after him, But he quickly became bold enough to climb by himself. Doc was holding the ladder with steady hands of course.

James was climbing the long ladder by himself.

On the top of the ladder and peeking inside.