Make Way For Downtown Ducklings

A few long strides from noisy sidewalk pedestrians, 60 feet from South Main Street, 120 feet from the tinny whine of cars clipping along at 75 mph on Interstate 680, there was a blessed event last week. 

Make way for ducklings.

A clutch of ducklings was born to a wood duck hen who has made a home in a wooden nest box bolted to a very urban redwood.

There's a revival of wood ducks nesting along urban creeks in Walnut Creek with a little help from human volunteers.

Patch tagged along Sunday as Brian Murphy made the rounds of a few nest boxes on San Ramon Creek. No wood ducks or ducklings were spotted while he and fellow volunteer David Ogden spruced up a few boxes in the ravine along South Main Street, including maintenance of wood shavings in nests.

 "I get to be a 7-year-old again and play in creeks and monitor squirrels in boxes," said Murphy. Squirrels or bees found nesting in the wood boxes are chased out.

The Just For Ducks program is part of the Mount Diablo Audubon Society.

The ducklings were born Monday. They climbed out of the nest box Tuesday and have been sampling the creek and narrow glade downtown, a little upstream from where it turns into a concrete channel, said Murphy. 

The next boxes have a little crosshatch carved on the inside that gives little duck feet some purchase to climb up and out. The boxes are carved and assembled by Eagle Scouts, including one stamped by Andrew Gutierrez of Tracy.

The urban revival includes some wood ducks nesting in Tice Creek, about 2,000 feet from the South Main Street nest, said Murphy, an engineer with the city of Walnut Creek.

 "They have a habitat," he said. "All they need is the housing."

The manmade nests fill the need once filled by old-growth trees pocked with natural cavities, said Murphy. The trees in this and most stretches of San Ramon Creek are second-growth after creek-bank clearing in the past.

The wood boxes are placed so that raccoons can't reach down and get at the eggs or the ducklings.

The wood box hard by South Main Street has been an active nest for three years. Murphy said this year that the hen had two clutches of ducklings — in the late winter and again Monday.

The Walnut Creek volunteers work with the California Waterfowl Association in the restoration effort, including banding some ducks to track their movements.

 Murphy said he was inspired in his efforts by Russ Fletcher, a now-retired maintenance worker who maintained duck boxes at a pond at Heather Farms Park.

 "Wood ducks are really shy," said Murphy. "People don't really think they live around here but they do."