Ceder Pond Duck Box Update

The previous blog post mentioned the one duck box that we hadn't been able to get to yet. It is at Ceder Pond, and is pictured above. The hazards are obvious in the photo. Despite these, Scott Dayton and I managed to get to it this afternoon. We wore snowshoes in from White's Woods Rd., but they proved to be more trouble than they were worth. I wore mine over my insulated chest waders, and am very glad that I did. They (the waders) proved to be indispensable to this operation. Equally useful was my potato hook, which I used to break the inch-thick ice in front of and around the pole. This allowed me to step carefully into the water and avoid the 4 foot deep hole that is right in front of the box. I opened the box and was pleased to find that it had successfully fledged 5 Hooded Mergansers last year. They apparently nested after the flood waters had receded. In April this nest box was almost completely under water. It also spent most of 2009 under water. That's why we are moving it about 15' laterally and 5' vertically up the shoreline. This should make it less susceptible to flooding. I was able to detach the box from the pole and hand it to Scott. He then used his long arms and muscles to rock the pole out of the mud. The old box had too many split parts to be salvageable, so a new box will be erected in the previously mentioned better location sometime soon.