Recently, artist and photographer Laurie Wolf who lives in Florida was in her backyard, inspecting all the birdhouses she and her family had hung. What is saw in one of the birdhouses was a mother wood duck moving her egg.
Wait for the surprise!
“The mother duck took the nest out of one of the birdhouses and flew into another with the egg in her beak. We think she did this because the nest had been robbed, and there were eggshells at the foot of the pine tree where the birdhouse is,” explained Laurie. 
“A day or two after seeing that, an owl moved into that birdhouse.” A month later, the duckling appeared next to the owl in the birdhouse. “The sight of the duckling next to the owl is the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. I still find it hard to believe.” 
“I’m sure the owl hatched the duck egg because it was in the birdhouse for a whole month.”
“A little later, the duckling was in the hole, calling his parents. We think they heard each other, because suddenly it came out of the box and flew to the fence and to the neighbor’s pond, where the ducks used to be.
We have also seen a female wood duck, 3 or 4 weeks ago she took an egg from a birdhouse that had been robbed and put it in this one.
We lost it in the woods and didn’t want to disturb it. But we think she left it in that birdhouse and the owl hatched it,” Laurie wrote on Facebook.
Laurie and her family have not seen the duckling since. “The nearby pond is owned by the neighbor, and is quite hidden.”
According to National Geographic, wood ducks can live with this type of owls. “It’s not common, but it certainly happens,” said Christian Artuso
“If you lay your eggs in different nests, the chance of spreading your genes increases slightly, especially if you lose your own eggs to a predator.”
“We know this happens, but we don’t know how often. So I’m glad to have seen another example of it,” Artuso concluded.
