NESTING ECOLOGY AND PATTERNS OF MORTALITY IN WOOD DUCKS
Nevada Waterfowl Association, with its partners, University of Nevada Reno, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Stillwater NWR, and Nevada Department of Wildlife have been studying wood ducks in the Fallon, Nevada area since 2003. The unique structure of Nevada's wetlands and the impeccable cooperation from private landowners have made this project one of the best duck research projects in North America.
What are we doing on this project?
1) Capture as many individuals as possible during the entire non-hunting season. We mark all individuals when captured. Ducklings too small to band are fitted with a webtag. If their leg is large enough to hold bands, we mark the ducks with both a standard metal band and a coded plastic legband.
2) We, along with many others, spend time to watch wood ducks and read the plastic leg bands. This is just as good of data as physically capturing the bird to record its metal legband.
3) Over the course of this study, we have erected 410 nesting boxes which were provided by NWA, donations, 3 Eagle Scout projects, and from Reno High School students. All boxes are checked weekly during the nesting season at which time data is collected, hens are banded, and when hatching, all ducklings are webtagged.
4) We are currently collecting genetic data from each individual when captured. We are hoping to expand this project to look at variation in breeding strategies in wood ducks.
This project is supervised by Chris Nicolai and is being used as a Master's project through UNR by Steve Olson. Steve began working on the project in January 2009. Contact Steve for more information regarding volunteering.
Document Link This link to left is for 2009 report
