2/10/2021
Josh Johnson, left, John Sanna, center, and Angel Conroy installing a wood duck box at Valley Falls Pond on Jan. 31. The boxes will provide shelter and protection for the colorful waterfowl.
John Sanna has waited five years for the right weather conditions to freeze the ice enough at Valley Falls Pond so that he could go out and install wood duck boxes, and on Sunday, Jan. 31, the Cumberland native saw his opportunity.
Along with several family members, Sanna installed seven of these boxes, meant to provide shelter for wood ducks, which thrive in swamps and marshes, at the pond located at the border of Lincoln, Cumberland, and Central Falls. Last week he said he was hoping to get back out and install more boxes in Cumberland but wasn’t sure if the ice would be too thin for him to do it safely.
Though he’s a hunter, Sanna, who now lives in Tiverton, told The Breeze that conservation efforts are important to him, and these boxes help protect Rhode Island’s wood ducks from predators and thus increase their populations. “You have to give back. You just don’t take,” he said. “If you can help out the wildlife, it’s great.”
Deforestation has taken away nesting cavities in trees, which wood ducks would normally use, Sanna explained when asked what the reason is for installing the boxes. By placing them in the marshes, the ducks can fly into them and use them for nesting, which they do in early spring.
“In precolonial times, the wood duck was likely the most abundant waterfowl species in eastern North America,” according to the Ducks Unlimited website. Overhunting and the destruction of bottomland habitats almost caused the birds to go extinct by the early 1900s. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, which provided protection to these and other birds, and the development of these man-made nesting structures, referred to as wood duck boxes, can be attributed to the species’ rebound, states the website.
Installing them over bodies of water cuts down on the number of predators that can get to them, he said. If you just nail a box to a tree, “any raccoon or opossum can get them,” he said.
According to Jennifer Kilburn, a principal wildlife biologist at the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, staff at DEM check and maintain all wood duck boxes on state and public property and have checked 172 boxes this season.
Private landowners who have boxes on their property will maintain them and send information to DEM as well, she added. At one point Rhode Island had up to 700 boxes actively being monitored in the state.
The last time Sanna installed some of these boxes was in 2015, which was the last winter where it got cold enough for the ice to be safe, he noted. He placed them at Simmons Mill Pond in Little Compton.
When asked why he chose Valley Falls Pond, Sanna said he always loved going to the marsh, noting it’s a great place for canoeing and kayaking. “That is an excellent area,” he said.
At approximately 28 inches tall and a foot wide, Sanna noted the boxes aren’t that light. When placing them, he said, they should face to the south; if they’re facing north, storms could blow cold air into the nests.
In the past, he said, he’s tried installing them from a boat, but it’s easier to be standing on the ice than on a boat when hammering the posts into the earth.
The boxes are pretty easy to make and usually crafted out of rough pine, Sanna said. For a step-by-step guide to making wood duck boxes, visit www.ducks.org/conservation/waterfowl-research-science/build-a-wood-duck-box . For more information on where and how to place the boxes, visit www.ducks.org/conservation/waterfowl-research-science/wood-duck-boxes .
“It’s something I enjoy,” Sanna said, noting that it’s a hobby for him. “Most people who hunt and fish are just as involved in conservation as they are in the hunting and fishing,” he said, adding that people can’t keep taking away from the environment without putting something back.
Make boxes for the Ten Mile River Watershed
After seeing Sanna post about installing the wood duck boxes at Valley Falls Pond, Keith Gonsalves, founder and president of the Ten Mile River Watershed Council, put out a call on Facebook looking for folks to make boxes to be installed along the watershed, which includes land in Pawtucket, East Providence, and several Massachusetts communities.
Gonsalves, who said he’d also like to install birdhouses, said “it’s nice to attract new birds” to the area, adding that the boxes and birdhouses are a “whimsical thing to see when walking. I don’t know why but they put a smile on people’s faces.”
The project, he said, is a way to engage the public, and getting involved with this project lets people be amateur ecologist and bird watchers. Especially during the pandemic, he said, people may be looking for a way to keep themselves busy and could craft some of these boxes and birdhouses. “We’re always looking for people to do something,” he said.
He’d be happy to install the boxes in Slater Park, with permission from city officials, as well as along the Ten Mile Greenway, which runs from East Providence to the park, he said.
Anyone interested in helping can email Gonsalves at keith@tenmileriver.net .
The wood duck boxes, which provide protection to the waterfowl facing fewer natural habitats due to deforestation, that Cumberland native John Sanna and others installed at Valley Falls Pond on Jan. 31.
wood duck in winter
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February 11, 2021 at 03:01PM
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Wood duck boxes installed at local pond - Valley Breeze
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