Local Youngsters Helps Ducks, Wins Big Prize

By Jere Hough Meteorologist / Feature Reporter

Published: Mon, March 12, 2007 - 6:03 am
Last Updated: Wed, August 29, 2007 - 3:35 pm

Jere Hough

(INTRO) WE ARE BLESSED WITH AN AMAZING VARIETY OF WILDLIFE ON THE GULF COAST, BUT BETWEEN NATURAL DISASTERS AND AN EVER-GROWING HUMAN POPULATION, SOME OF OUR BIRDS AND ANIMALS COULD USE A LITTLE HELP...LIKE THE PROJECT METEOROLOGIST JERE HOUGH FOUND IN PROGRESS...JUST DOWN COUNTY ROAD 5.

There's a connection between these animals, living in the wild in South Africa's Sabi Sabi Private Game Reserve, and these wood ducks...living in the wild on Mobile's Dog River. The connection- Madeleine Boudreaux, who also lives on Dog River.

In National Geographic's Kids Magazine, she read about a contest. She explains, "You had to enter an essay and a photograph to go with it showing how you were a hands-on explorer in your world."

Her essay was titled, "Wood Duck Paradise."

"It was about replacing wood duck boxes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, all along Dog River."

That was last November. Hers was one of four thousand entries sent to Kid's Magazine. Hers was one of fifteen... that won!

She got the phone call in January and was told,

"...You're going to Africa! Madeleine flashes a big smile.

Actually she and her dad are going to South Africa for 11 days in August. (The prize includes a ticket for a parent.)

After all, he, like Madeleine, has become an authority on wood duck nesting boxes...he's built several so far with the required four-inch hole.

Pointing to the hole for which there is no perch, he says, "They will fly in and come and land there and go in themselves. It's amazing how they can do that."

And inside that deep box, a dozen or more newborn ducklings must eventually leave the wood chip nest by climbing up a ladder: chicken wire below the hole.

They've already placed some boxes and added an aluminum cone.

The cones hang below the nests. "The cone," she says, "is to keep predators like racoons and snakes from crawling up the pole and getting to the baby ducklings inside."

Now, it's up to the ducks to find them and move in.

Meteorologist Jere Hough looks at the many nest boxes already replaced and points out, "Madeleine Boudreaux' South African adventure is a direct result of her doing what lots of Gulf Coast residents had to do after Katrina...rebuild a neighborhood. On County Road 5, on Dog River, I'm Jere Hough, News 5."

(TAG) MADELEINE IS THIRTEEN YEARS OLD. SHE IS A SEVENTH GRADER AT UMS-WRIGHT SCHOOL, AND HER TRIP ALSO INCLUDES WHALE WATCHING OFF THE SOUTH AFRICAN COAST.

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