The Mount Diablo Audubon Society, in partnership with California Wood Duck Program, installed wood duck boxes along downtown Walnut Creek’s wooded creeks to try to recover our wood duck population.
Old growth trees producing natural cavities for native wood ducks to nest in along our creeks were removed during flood control improvement projects in the 1970s, so wood boxes now provide nesting for wood ducks as they have returned to our downtown creeks.
After eight years of providing housing for wood ducks, there is a wood duck hen incubating 12 eggs in a nest box at Civic Park on Walnut Creek.
Ducklings hatched from this box will imprint on this reach of Walnut Creek at Civic Park as ‘home’ -- and will return next year to nest in boxes installed by scouts from a Community Service Day Project in 2013.
A Western Screech Owl nested in a wood duck box at Civic Park last year, producing two owlets, and this year she is nesting in another wood duck box incubating four eggs.
On San Ramon Creek, a wood duck hen is nesting in the same box for the sixth year.
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