Recently, artist and photographer Laurie Wolf took to her backyard in Jupiter, Florida, to check out all the different birdhouses (also known as nesting boxes) that she and her family had put together. together. To her surprise, Laurie noticed a mother wood duck moving her egg.

“The mother duck took the egg out of one of our nest boxes and flew towards the other box with her beak,” Laurie told Bored Panda. “We believe the duck moved the egg because the nest was raided – there were eggshells at the base of the pine tree where the box was.”

“About a day after we saw that, a screech owl moved into that box.”

A month later, the duck appeared in the box along with the owl. “Seeing the owl and duckling was honestly the most amazing thing I have ever seen in my life! Still hard to believe.”

“I’m sure the owl hatched the duck egg because it was in the box for a month,” said Laurie.

The woman was concerned that the hunting owl might eat the duckling, so she contacted a bird expert. As it turns out, Laurie was right to be scared. A wildlife sanctuary in her area agreed to care for the duckling if Laure caught it. However, just as she was about to catch the bird, it jumped out of the nest and ran away to a nearby pond.

Laurie shared the update on Facebook: “A moment later, the duckling crawled into the hole, calling for its parents.” “We believe they heard each other because it suddenly left the box and went straight to our neighbor’s back fence and pond, where the forest trees often hang out.

“Also, we saw a female wood duck – about three or four weeks ago, taking a duck egg out of a box that had been attacked by something and flying towards this box with it.”

“We lost it in the tree and didn’t want to disturb it. But we believe she put it in this box and the owl incubated it.”

Laurie and her family have not seen the duckling since. “The pond nearby is on our neighbor’s property and is very hidden.”

According to National Geographic, wood ducks have also been recorded living with eastern screech owls in the past. “This is off the record,” said Christian Artuso, director of the Canadian Ornithology Service in Manitoba, who made a similar observation in 2005 while studying Eastern screech owls for his PhD. widely copied, but it certainly happened.”

Wild ducks are known to have the habit of parasitizing their brood. This means that parent ducks will sometimes lay an egg or two in someone else’s nest. For example, another species of wood duck or some other closely related species. “You can think of it as not putting all your eggs in one basket,” Artuso continued. “If you spread your eggs out, your chances of passing on your genes increase a bit, especially if you lose your own eggs to a predator.”

“We know this happens but we really don’t know how often,” the scientist concluded. “So I’m happy to see another example of this.”