ducklings?

[Linda G.]

Same as in my latest post on the turkey forum...what are you seeing out there?

Hen mallards (and other species, too!) with ducklings? If so, how many, about how old, and where are you?

Drakes still with hens? (Yes, that's the case up here for lots of our ducks)

Drakes traveling with other drakes? (Bachelorhood during the nesting period)

Hen mallards with other hens? (no nesting success)

I'm seeing a few very small ducklings for this time of the year, a very late hatch...but the bad news is, I'm hardly seeing a third of what I saw last year in the way of ducklings, and last year wasn't the best of years for mallard hatches up here...

LOTS of geese, however...a lot of those appear to be late hatches, too.

Linda

[Brian S]

Linda G, in the swamp next to my house I have seen two broods of mallards (one with 8 the other had 5) and one brood of wood ducks (7). Two broods of mallards is about normal for that swamp. Usually I get two nestings in each of the two wood duck boxes but this year I believe only one brood hatched from one box and nothing from the other box. I haven't cleaned the boxes out yet so I don't know for sure. I know when the one hen left the box with her chicks nothing else came in to nest. I've had those boxes up for about seven years now and this year has been the worst as far as hens in them.

[Mr. 16 gauge]

Hi Linda;
Hey! Don't you know that the reason for the mallard decline is them damn Roboducks!;) :p Them boys in Kalifornia even proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt.:rolleyes:
Seriously, I have only seen a couple of broods, but one had 7 ducklings and the other had 9 (mallards), and they were pretty good sized ducklings (this was about a week ago, in the Frankenmuth area). In the city where I live, the darn geese have survived any attempts to curtail thier numbers....The majority of the goslings are almost fully fledged, and the are running 6-9 to a brood. Trouble is, the are in the city.:( However, with all this dry weather, the grassy yards that they usually feed in are dried up, so I am seeing more and more of them in the air....HIGH in the air. Possibly, hunting in areas around the cities (where legal) may offer some potential, as they fly out in search of food.
The bad thing that I am seeing is TONS of raccoons & raccoon sign; they seem to be everywhere. I saw a lone kit the other day that appeared sickly....distemper? Not sure, and I didn't stop to find out. Maybe we need the college-bound members of this board to start the fad of raccoon coats on University campuses again:D I'm sure that is where a lot of our ducklings/nesting hens are going.....into to stomachs of predators.:( :mad:

Now here is something to think about......with all the low water we have been having (for years), is it possible that the ducks are again ingesting lead shot that was fired years ago? Now that the water levels are at thier lowest, the ducks, esp. puddle ducks, can feed in areas that they traditionally couldn't before, and divers as well can now dive in areas that they maybe didn't feed in before. This might also explain part of the reason scaup populations have dropped as low as they have so quickly. I think it would be an interesting study if someone took and sampled both gizzards and blood samples for lead on the managed areas. One of the hazards of lead poisioning is a decreased reproductive ability. Maybe these birds aren't getting enough into thier systems to create the "classic" symptons of waterfowl poisioning (craning of the head & neck, death), but enough that it is screwing up thier reproductive capabilities. Just a theory of mine...........I have no way of proving or disproving it without research. FWIW.

[Linda G.]

are up in northern Michigan, not much, but a little...although if we get much more dry weather, we'll lose that, in a hurry.

I think any poor hatches up here are much more weather related than anything. Ducks like rotten weather, I know, but I don't think eggs do.

Raccoons, I hear you...it's been a fairly open season on them up here for a number of years now...

Linda

[goose hunter]

Well I must be having good luck around my hunting spots. Everywhere that I have scouted the last couple weeks, I have found hens with chicks. Several have been small chicks so i must think they are the second attempt. We have a big time raccoon problem. We have taken several in the live catch traps. Cant keep up with them. I wish I had the time I had as a youth to trap. I think I could put a pretty good dent in them. That is on the southeastern side of the state, near Ann Arbor. On this side of the state (Gobles) I'm seeing plenty of the mallards but not many wood ducks. The geese are out of control. They are everywhere I have looked. I had a good year last year and predict a jump in my kill again this year. I see a few divers on the large lakes but not many. When going out fishing on the Lake Michigan out of St. Joe, I have had a lot of ducks swimming around in the river. They look to be doing fine. This is inside the city limits. Dont know much about up river. Again geese are everywhere in that area.

[FishTales]

I was on my way to take my Brittany to the dog park to get her exercise the other day, i got to a stop sign in the condo complex and seen a female mallard standing by a sewer, first thing i thought of was the chicks, i pulled over and walked up to her and she said "quack, quack, quack" i looked in the drain and sure enough her chicks were down there. I went about a 1/4 mile away to the fire station and asked who to contact to get them out. They said they would call for animal control, i went home for about 5 minutes and when i went by again there were 3 firemen at the drain and one standing in the hole, I stopped and asked about the chicks and they said they had gotten 6 out and 2 more to get, i would like to say thanks to the Clinton Township Fire Dept.

[Linda G.]

very cool story, that's great...what's with ducks and sewer drains? I hear about this type of thing every year, several times a year...do they hear the water or just fall in or what?

It might not be a bad idea for some of the sewer departments in areas that have problems like this all the time to put grates over their sewer openings, that would help...

Linda

[FishTales]

One of the problems is the wildlife trying to co-habitate with civilization, my complex has part of the clinton river drainage running alongside. The ducks and geese spend time at a golf course a half mile north and another one about a mile south of me. The ducklings are small, they look about the size of a tennis ball but they are really a lot of fluffy down feathers and can fit through the slots on the sewer grates.

[ytlabs]

Here In central Michigan, I am seeing spots of good bad and the downright UGLY for the nesting results.

On our Lake ( Sanford ) it is a so so situation.
On the Dow ponds and lake, in Midland the hatch looks prety good.

On the forest ponds and swamps. it is bad to very bad. I am seeing no Wood ducks anywhere this year. I am stumped on this one. I suppose since the forest is wetter than last year they may still be deep in the woods on little tiny sets of water, but our creek that usualy has them on it is BUST!

The geese well that is even a so so it apears. Hmm this is a dreary report I know, But well the facts are not always pretty.

[quest32a]

i used to work in a small store on a busy road, once a year a female duck would try and bring her chicks across the road. my old boss helped the first year before they even made it to the street. the 2nd year i watched as 3 of them fell into the sewer and i had to pull them out with the mother within 6 inches of my head. and finally last year we were able to catch them on the other side of the road and gather them in a box while the mother patiently watched, carry them across the road and release them in the creek. pretty cool stuff. it is not often i have gotten to handle wild ducklings.

[fishandhunt]

Have a suzy and her 5 ducklings come to the pond every morning and stay all day. THe wood duck box produced one brood this year, but they vanished as soon as they dropped down. Also have 13 geese spending the days and nights (pond is only 80 foot diameter)

At my place on Fish Point there are a lot of geese but few broods where I can see them. There are a lot of full grown ducks flying around so I think that they probably have a brood somewhere.

[Firetiger]

Oh I thought this was a post on a new orange sauce recipe,,LOL
Theres tons of birds down here, looks like some nested twice, cabin crusiers taking there toll on the river birds,,water levels low, one of my hunting spots is bone dry,, I know it will fill up later in the season, hopefully, I don't want have to truck in couple thousand gallons of water,,lol