Wood Duck Invades Vuture Nest – Ghost Babies Fight Back

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The turkey vulture nest gets visitors from time to time. An occasional nuthatch or raccoon as seen in Night Visitor pass through. This week, wood ducks have been landing on and peering into the cavity of the turkey vulture nest.

Much to my surprise, a brave hen decided to leap inside.
We lowered a GoPro to get a duck’s eye view of the chicks. My friend Rhythm calls them “ghost babies.”

Having all of this in my backyard is pure bliss. 🙂

Wood Duck Flock

– In the spring wood ducks flock to the pond. They often feed in the grasses and on sprouting acorns under the oaks. © Maryᴀ Livingston

Wood Duck Drake

– A beautiful view from my office desk of a wood duck drake. © MaryA Livingston

Wood Duck Hen

– A wood duck hen on the pond in my backyard.© Maryᴀ Livingston

Vulture chicks

Turkey Vulture Chicks at 5 weeks – © Maryᴀ Livingston

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Birds of a Different Feather
Eerie Sounds from the Vulture Nest
Vulture Chicks – 3 weeks
Peek-a-boo, We see two…
Turkey Vulture Shift Change
Turkey Vultures Hatched!
Turkey Vulture Rendezvous
Spying on the Vulture Nest
Bigger on the Inside
UGLY Birds Gather
Vulture Turf Wars
Across the Threshold

22 thoughts on “Wood Duck Invades Vuture Nest – Ghost Babies Fight Back”

  2. Wow, the wood duck hen on the pond, especially, is an awesome shot; Iwish I could paint that water 😉 Fascinating video of the chicks, such a rare opportunity, thank you. All the photos are superb. Can’t wait to see when you capture first flight. I wish you a good weekend ~Scott

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    • Thanks. We have a live feed set up on the entrance to the vulture nest. Trying to figure out how to have the live feed inside, perhaps next season. I was shocked when the wood duck dove in the nest cavity. The wood ducks explore the trees often as we have a lot of hollow trees in our area. The turkey vultures start nesting in late February, so they get first dibs.
      I may have a few more tries to lower the GoPro before the chicks start working on their climb out. Wish I could capture that climb!

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  5. that is such a great video! the music is fun as well! the ironic part about the music, is that with the slow connection, a short youtube often takes fifteen or twenty minutes to load/play. i forgot and prompted it to start, and it did fine until second 19 when it came to an abrupt halt. play yours until that moment, and see if it is as ‘perfect’ as it seemed here!
    z

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  7. Dear Mary,
    I loved the video. Wood Ducks are beautiful, aren’t they? Your paintings of them are wonderful. Thanks for always sharing fun things.

    Celebrate your love of nature
    Never Give Up

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    • Painting wood ducks, I will have to do that some time they have such great color and interesting patterns. I sketched the hen yesterday, since she was the one to brave the vulture nest. But a painting may be in order. 😉
      I saw you great post on 50K reads… congrats!

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  8. Oh! This video is so great!! When that duck came out it looked like she was sure telling somebody off or something! Those “chicks” are sure getting big. One of our family princesses used to have a dog costume that looked just like them! I love your videos. Can’t wait to see them try to get out of that tree!

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    • Me too. Love the bit about the family princess costume. And I must say, since you called them “ghost babies” they are just a little more endearing. Soon they won’t look like this. They are already starting to get their grown up feathers.
      Hey – I just got your book!!! I am going to share it with my grandkids and of course Jake (4 legged friend). I will let you know what they think. 😀

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