I was cleaning out one of my wood duck boxes a few weeks ago and run into something that I have never seen. Inside one of my woodduck boxes was a nest made up of shredded bark with branches with green leaves around it. It had a cavity about 4" to 5" in diameter inside of the bark nest with about a 2" hole going into it. The branches lead me to believe that it was at least started during last summer. This isn't a squirrel nest, they always have a mix of chewed up leaves from the fall and small sticks and typically fill half or more of the box and this was just on the bottom. The outside of the bark ball was about 7" to 8" in diameter. I also don't think the cavity would be big enough for the Fox Squirrels that are in my area. If I recall correctly there was some of the shredded bark in this house last spring as well but a squirrel had built its nest on top of it. The first picture is what I am describing and the second picture was another house near by that looks to has the start of the same thing.


I have never seen anything like this. My thoughts is maybe a marten or a fisher. We do have fisher but no marten that I am aware of. Thoughts?

Schmattz

Flying squirrel?

Some kind of squirrel i'd guess.

Droppings?

No idea of the culprit but y'all must have some 5X squirrels if they can't fit through a 3"x4" (standard woodduck box opening size) hole

No one said that squirrels can't get into the wood duck boxes. I specifically said that they do but their nest are typically chewed up leaves with small sticks mixed in. This was a nice organized ball of shredded bark. I have a half dozen boxes with squirrel nests in every year and none look like this.


I would be very surprised as the closest one I have ever seen or heard of is 90 miles away. I am in farm land and I think they need pretty continuous woods to thrive.


There were only a couple that we very old and dried out and I couldn't tell much about it. it was about 1/8" diameter and 1/4" long and there was only about 2 pieces that I seen.

Anyone who run Marten nesting boxes? What does their nest look like?

Schmattz

Mongoose