An artist and photographer Laurie Wolf was in her backyard in Jupiter, Florida examining all the different birdhouses which she and her family put together.
Laurie noticed a mother duck removing her the egg from one of her nesting boxes.
Laurie told Bored Panda: “The mother duck removed the egg from one of our nesting boxes and flew toward this other box with it in her bill,”
“We believe that the duck moved the egg because that nest had been raided – there were eggshells at the bottom of the pine tree where the box is.”
“A day or so after we saw that, a screech owl moved into that box.”
“Seeing the owl with the duckling was honestly the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my life! It’s still hard to believe.”
“I’m sure the owl hatched the duck egg because she was in the box with it for a whole month,” Laurie said.
Laurie shared the update on Facebook writing: “A bit later, the baby duck was in the hole by itself, calling for the parents,”
“We believe they heard each other because it suddenly left the box and made a beeline for the back fence and our neighbour’s pond where the woodies have been hanging out.
“Also, we had seen a female wood duck – about three or four weeks ago, remove a duck egg from a box that had been raided by something, and fly off toward this box with it.”
“We lost it in the trees and didn’t want to disturb it. But we believe she put it in this box and the owl hatched it.”
“The pond nearby is on our neighbor’s property and is very hidden.”
Christian Artuso, the Manitoba director of Bird Studies Canada, who made a similar observation back in 2005 while he was studying eastern screech owls for his PhD said: “It’s not commonly documented, but it certainly happens,”
“You could think of it as not keeping all your eggs in one basket,” Artuso continued. “If you spread your eggs out, then your chances of passing on your genes are increased slightly, especially if you lose your own eggs to a predator.”
“We know this occurs, but we really don’t know the frequency,” the scientist concluded. “So I was happy to see another example of this.”
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