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20 Kids - 20 Boxes
A Great "Waterfowler Day" in Havre de Grace
May 2, 2009

Our current, hectic pace reflects a mix of interim season nest monitoring, new box installations, public and private property habitat inspections, youth and educational projects and data compilation. Our May 4 activity report highlights our field operations as total project sites for 2010 will now exceed 70 and functional capacity will be above 1,700 boxes.

Most new projects are in the 3-15 box varieties although we are analyzing historic records at the Bosley Conservancy in Harford County to incorporate and conform these 75+/- boxes into our 2006-2008 data base. This 400-acre fresh water site is situated along Otter Creek in Edgewood, MD flowing into the Bush River and Chesapeake Bay. The Harford Christian School has been conducting annual nest inspections for several years and the program appears to be well established as a fine example of what MWDI would consider a Total Wetlands Experience!

We have drafted some additional “best practices” material which will be loaded into the website shortly. The Power Point format needs more amplification to clarify the recommended practices and improve our ability to handle these inquiries more effectively and we’re slowly making progress.

Before long, we expect to provide video clips of ducklings hatching, jumping from nests and nest strife on the web site and various internet links to longer video streams of these activities. Eventually, each of these informational aspects will be adapted into better teaching modules. We are trying to avoid re-creating the wheel where others have already generated a great deal of raw and semi-finished materials.

We appreciate the increasing number of inquiries to volunteer. It does take some planning and logistical coordination to provide the niche that works best as schedules evolve quickly and change just as frequently.

It helps us immensely when a potential volunteer can indicate their preferences such as the general time, day (weekday / weekends only), and location preferences as well as the scope of their desires - lumber cutting, youth mentoring, random, periodic or recurring nest monitoring or field installation, whether you have a Jon boat or even if you have no idea what might interest you. All guidance is very beneficial.

We have built volunteer notice lists for each region or function to advise of opportunities as a supplement to the Events Calendar we maintain on the web site. These communications are often more “current” and precise than information on the Events Calendar for pragmatic reasons. As we have developed more project site management, local support networks are being formed and nest monitoring is coordinated at times and dates I may not be aware of.  So, we are now referring our volunteers to these local networks and adding them to the volunteer notice list, making it easier to communicate for everyone.

We fully expect that most volunteers are not able to participate on each outing and we are not offended in any way when this happens. It’s the world we live in. Fortunately, our volunteer base continues to grow and we usually only need 1-3 people for each “task”. ANY time you invest with us, we are thrilled and thank you in advance.

Sincerely,

Cliff Brown
Executive Director
Maryland Wood Duck Initiative