Wood ducks leaving the nest for the first time are rarely seen. But through careful planning Debi Paradiso got video.

On the Thursday before Mother’s Day, Sherwood’s Debi Paradiso sat with her camera aimed through a window at a wooden box in her backyard, waiting for her golden goose.

Or, more accurately, golden ducklings. Wood ducklings.

After more than four hours of waiting, a hen stuck its head out of the nesting box Paradiso's husband had installed in their backyard. After 45 minutes of popping her head in and out, the hen decided it was safe to leave, and she jumped out of the small hole in the box. Twelve flashes of brown and yellow followed one by one, and Paradiso sent her camera into overdrive, capturing the adorable ducklings in their leap of faith.

Paradiso, who’s been a birdwatcher for 20 years, said in the six years they’ve had the nesting box in their backyard, she had only witnessed the leap once before, in 2018.

Wood ducks follow their mothers and jump from their nests the day after they are born, usually between 7 and 9 a.m.

But the jump is over in a matter of minutes, so you have to guess when it might happen, then diligently watch and wait.

One way to guess is to monitor when the hen lays her final egg. From that point, she incubates them all for about 30 days before they hatch.

The Wood Duck Society, a Minnesota-based nonprofit that promotes education and conservation of wood ducks, recommends a procedure for checking the nest box when the hen is out feeding to determine when the last egg was laid and therefore predict jump day.

Paradiso took a different approach. After observing the ducks for a few years, she noticed that the male stopped sitting vigil over the nest after the hen laid her last egg.

“He’s a deadbeat dad,” she joked.

This year, when she noticed the male left, she counted out 30 days. Near the end of that period, on May 7, she noticed the hen didn’t leave the box for her usual dinner run around 5:30 — a sign the eggs might have hatched.

The following morning, Paradiso and her husband woke early and set up their cameras inside their house, so they wouldn’t scare the hen outside.

They watched and waited — 7, 8, 9 a.m. passed and nothing happened. Paradiso went about her day. Around 11 a.m. she was on the phone and happened to look into her backyard. She noticed the hen peaking her head out of the box.

She grabbed her camera and within the hour the ducks began jumping from the box that was about 15 feet high.

“I’m talking about seconds, she dropped and they just started flying,” Paradiso said. “Some are doing a swan dive, some are doing a pencil dive, some are on their butts.”

The ducklings can’t fly when they’re that young (they start flying around eight weeks), but they’re so light that they don’t get hurt when they land, Paradiso said. They sometimes nest and jump from as high as 50 feet.

Paradiso then watched as the mother hen called the ducklings and they followed her into reeds and water nearby, where they would feed and grow until they were ready to fly.

Paradiso said they originally didn’t have water behind their house in Sherwood. But as the farmland around them was developed, water began collecting behind them. She said they decided to make lemonade out of lemons and turned it into a “sanctuary for wildlife.” In her seven years in the house, she’s seen everything from green herons and pileated woodpeckers to fawns and foxes in their little nature sanctuary.

For more wildlife watching and photography, she likes to visit nearby High Cliff State Park and Menasha’s Heckrodt Wetland Reserve, which she said was her favorite place for birdwatching.

“Right now, it is bursting with life,” she said, noting that owlets and baby cranes have been spotted there this spring, and they’re waiting for a handful of does to give birth.

Her eyes and camera are still on her backyard, though, too. A few days after the first wood duck brood left the box, Paradiso’s husband cleaned it out, since it’s possible for a new family to breed in the same box in one season. A new pair has already moved in, and she hopes to capture jump day again.

Paradiso posted the photos she captured of the first family jumping in a few birding groups she’s part of, and she said she’s gotten questions from other birders about nesting boxes and how she got the photos.

She’s told people what she’s learned from their nesting box experience, including the need to install anti-squirrel defenses. In their case, it consists of sheets of metal wrapped around the tree trunk above and below the box, which is anchored about 15 feet up the trunk. She also said you have to be diligent about monitoring the box and the birds.

But ultimately, she said, “Nature is all about being in the right place at the right time."