Supporting Wood Duck Populations in Mill Creek Nature Center Photo by Vance Walton
By Graydon Hidalgo e Mill Creek Nature Center is a nature preserve that serves to protect the land where Little Ivy Creek feeds into Ivy Creek. Centered between Mall of Georgia Boulevard and Highway 85 in Buford, Georgia, Mill Creek Nature Center is a gem amid suburban retail and domestic development. With wooded trails and blinds, and platforms for viewing birds and other wildlife, the center, hidden near the busy mall and roadway, provides a window into the incredible biodiversity our riparian ecosystems hold and, in turn, allows us to reflect on our local environment and ecological footprint. I first visited Mill Creek Nature Center to observe the birds in the area. When I arrived I was in awe at the sheer amount of wildlife that lives there. e feeling of stepping from suburban sprawl into a wildlife refuge over the course of a short walk down a staircase is simply surreal. From that moment on I made the decision I wanted to do everything in my power to help maintain and improve the refuge. I began working by cleaning up trash that had made its way into the preserve. As I continued to visit the Mill Creek center over days and weeks, I saw Cooper’s hawks, red-shouldered hawks, pileated woodpeckers, kingfishers, black vultures, whitethroated sparrows, herons, and mated pairs of the elusive hooded merganser. I also began to study tracks that indicated the presence of beaver and river otters. e diversity of wildlife led me to want to find a way to have an impact on the health of the ecosystem. I developed the idea of building additional wood duck nesting boxes. Wood ducks thrive in the nature preserve and naturally nest in tree cavities. Nesting boxes provide additional shelters similar to those of trees, and therefore encourage duck populations to safely grow. I began to build nesting boxes with the goal of adding one brood of newly-fledged wood ducks into Ivy Creek. With my father’s help, we built and set up two boxes on February 7, 2016, before the spring nesting season. With the boxes up we began checking regularly, and one day were ecstatic and anxious to find the cracked eggshell remains of successful broods at the bottom of the newly-built nests. We then decided simply finding empty egg shells was not enough. We wanted a closer look into an unseen wilderness to get a glimpse of our impact on this precious corner of our environment. My dad and I invested in trail cams to obtain video of our broods hatching and making their leap of faith into Mill Creek Nature Center. Trail cams record when they detect motion. With the cams we soon discovered that both our boxes had been chosen
as nesting sites. In tracking the ducks’ normal nesting cycle, I found that both broods had successfully hatched. Based on observations from the trail cams and the hatch evidence, I estimate that over 80% of the eggs hatched and chicks successfully fledged from both nesting boxes. Aer I reported my results to Hank Ohme, Program Manager of Mill Creek Nature Center, he suggested we clean out the nesting boxes and see if a late nesting would take place. Within a few weeks we discovered that one of the boxes in fact contained a new wood duck nest. I tracked the third nest of the season and discovered that in June it had produced nine ducklings. is number was confirmed by examination of the nest and a photo taken by Ohme shortly aer we confirmed that the brood hatched and fledged. Wood duck eggs are vulnerable to various treedwelling predators, such as raccoon, squirrel, woodpeckers, and starlings. Nesting boxes provide additional protection so more eggs can hatch. At Mill Creek, not only did we assist in Photo by Hank Ohme fledging three broods of wood ducks into Ivy Creek, we captured photographs and video of the chicks making their jump into the new world they would soon make their home. e experience I gained from working with these birds was heartwarming and invaluable, but also eye-opening as to how Photo by Hank Ohme we can have a positive impact on the environment around us. I hope to use what I gained from this project to further my career in educating others on wild areas such as these, and helping to preserve the diversity of our North American ecosystems. Graydon Hidalgo, an avid birder and photographer, is a seventeenyear-old student in Dacula. 9