“A bit later, the baby duck was in the hole by itself, calling for the parents,” Laurie shared the update on Facebook. “We believe they heard each other because it suddenly left the box and made a beeline for the back fence and our neighbor’s pond where the woodies have been hanging out.

“Also, we had seen a female wood duck – about three or four weeks ago, remove a duck egg from a box that had been raided by something, and fly off toward this box with it.”

“We lost it in the trees and didn’t want to disturb it. But we believe she put it in this box and the owl hatched it.”

Laurie and her family haven’t seen the duckling ever since. “The pond nearby is on our neighbor’s property and is very hidden.”

According to National Geographic, wood ducks have been recorded living with eastern screech owls in the past as well. “It’s not commonly documented, but it certainly happens,” said Christian Artuso, the Manitoba director of Bird Studies Canada, who made a similar observation back in 2005 while he was studying eastern screech owls for his Ph.D.

Wood ducks are known to practice brood parasitism. This means that parent ducks will sometimes lay an egg or two in someone else’s nest. For example, another wood duck or some other closely related species. “You could think of it as not keeping all your eggs in one basket,” Artuso continued. “If you spread your eggs out, then your chances of passing on your genes are increased slightly, especially if you lose your own eggs to a predator.”

“We know this occurs, but we really don’t know the frequency,” the scientist concluded. “So I was happy to see another example of this.”