100 turnout for HH project

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By Ray Grass
Deseret Morning News
Published: Thursday, March 13, 2008

FARMINGTON BAY — When ducks and geese begin arriving, which won't be too long from now, they will find their communities here have been remodeled ... new homes, new furnishings, new beginning.

Roughly 100 volunteers recently showed up at Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area — some hunters, some Scouts, some just wanting to help waterfowl — to help restore duck and goose nests. This is the third year of this particular work project. And, according to Richard Hansen, manager of Farmington Bay refuge for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, this could be the year of discovery.

There are roughly 350 duck nests and 45 goose platforms on the refuge. Hansen would like to see upward of 500 duck nests and likely fewer goose platforms in the future.

Carl Taylor, executive director of the Utah Waterfowl Association, would like to see more duck nests on Farmington Bay, "and many more wherever suitable habitat is available for spring nesting."

The Utah Waterfowl Association approached the DWR three years ago to undertake the nesting project in order to protect waterfowl from serious predator threats from raccoons, skunks and foxes.

There are two types of nests on the marsh for ducks. One resembles a large, round plastic scoop perched on long pipes. Obviously, predators can't climb the pipes, which keeps ducks, their eggs and eventually their young, safe. The second type is a long, circular nest of wire and straw set on a tall pole. Both are being supplied by volunteer workers, such as Scout troops that are building the nests as a work project.

Straw is used rather than hay because hay will mold and affect the membrane and shell of the eggs.
Hansen said about 20 percent of the available duck nests were occupied last year, "which is pretty good. This is a long-term learning process for ducks. When one nest is successfully nested, hens that come out of those nests will come back when they nest themselves and remember the nests. After two years, now, it's very possible this could really take off this spring."

Many people have the perception that ducks aren't perchers but are ground nesters.

Hansen said he has watched as ducks swim up to the nest, then fly up and back down a couple of times. By the second or third try, they are usually in the nest and ready to settle in. Once inside, they will scratch around, move the straw to their liking and nest.

He said once birds start moving onto the nests, he will continuously monitor the sites to check on the residents and occupancy.

What is encouraging is that rearing success of those ducks using the man-made nests is upward of 80 percent, versus anywhere from zero to 20 percent for ducks nesting elsewhere.

Again, the big problem is that the number of predators, especially raccoons that are increasing rapidly in marshy areas, put both ducks and geese in constant jeopardy.

Another problem is the spread of phragmites, a dense ornamental plant that is non-native to Utah and is limiting nesting opportunities. Ducks and geese are being forced to nest along dikes, which are perfect predator corridors.

The goose nests are an elevated platform with three bails of straw placed in the shape of an L.

Hansen said all of the goose nests will be used this spring, "some as many as two or three times. A pair of geese will wait around until the nesting pair has successfully hatched their young, and when they leave, the waiting pair will occupy the nest."

The problem is that once the goslings have hatched and are able to fly, they head into the cities and become nuisance birds on golf courses and private ponds.

Under a project undertaken last year, 400 geese were tagged by DWR biologist prior to the hunting season. Only 24 tags were returned, which supports the belief that geese have learned that once shooting opens on the annual duck hunt, they move into the cities.

Last summer, the DWR undertook a program where it trapped 1,700 city geese — 1,000 adults and 700 juveniles — and moved them to remote locations.

Hansen said the summer project was very successful.

"Of the 500 geese fitted with neck collars, only 100 with collars came back into the city. Our juvenile program was more successful. Young geese were taken to areas where the wild could be imprinted on them. Only five of those geese came back to the city," he said.

"We were extremely successful in getting the juveniles into the wild."

The summer program will be repeated in June.

Taylor said he originally suggested the project as an educational tool in hopes of getting people better acquainted with waterfowl.

Instrumental in the refurbishing of the nests are the Utah Airboaters. About 20 of the prop-driven boats showed up to take volunteers out to nesting sites.

The airboats, with flat bottoms, square noses and elevated engines pushed by a propeller, have been coming to the marshes for about 15 years setting up goose nests.

The boats glide easily over shallow water, ice, snow and short vegetation, areas that are nearly impossible to walk over.

Taylor has also been involved in placing nesting sites for wood ducks.

The reason for singling out a species, he said, is because the wood duck is very reclusive and chooses to nest in caverns as opposed to open nests. Breeding success in the wood-duck boxes is between 80 and 90 percent. He has helped to place the boxes along the Wasatch Front, between Logan and Utah County and, here, too, he would like to expand this project.

In all of these projects, volunteers have become crucial to their success. And, as Taylor noted, it is an opportunity for people to learn firsthand about the living conditions and life of Utah's waterfowl.

Anyone interested in volunteering for waterfowl projects can contact Taylor at carl@thedeuckman.net.

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695260794,00.html

[JABIII]

And anudder...

For ducks, all the comforts of home

By Hilary Smith, staff writer
Daily Messenger
Thu Mar 13, 2008, 11:34 AM EDT

Canandaigua, N.Y. -
From a distance, the eight mallard nesting cylinders placed in and around a swamp just off Route 332 in Canandaigua look like larger-than-life corn cobs.

The tubes — rolls of wire mesh fencing with straw woven between the layers — are suspended over the swamp and the shore on metal tripods. They provide female mallard ducks, or hens, with comfortable spaces to build their nests, far out of the reach of raccoons and other predators.

Members of the Canandaigua Academy Ecology Club and students from the school’s international baccalaureate program, led by Academy teacher Dan Richardson, installed the cylinders from 2004 to 2006.

Richardson wrote in an e-mail that the project’s purpose was “to get kids involved in a local conservation project that they could actually see the benefits to.”

For each of the last few springs, Rushville resident Kevin Oliver and fellow members of the Canandaigua Lake Duck Hunters have refurbished the cylinders with fresh straw, readying them for the nesting season. If the egg shells and old nesting debris left behind in the cylinders are any indication, the ducks have definitely taking a liking to the tubes, said Oliver.

Some might find it ironic that a group named for the sport of killing ducks has put so much time and energy into taking care of them — but those seemingly paradoxical purposes have guided the Canandaigua Lake Duck Hunters since the group was established in the early 1950s.

Robert “Rodge” Case, of Canandaigua, was one of the Duck Hunters’ 20-or-so founding members.

“The group formed in 1953 because we had very few ducks on the lake,” recalls Case. “When we started, we were interested primarily in getting more ducks here so we could hunt them.”

The group first attempted to draw more ducks to the lake by putting in a bunch of aquatic plants. But the enticement that ultimately brought the birds en masse was a large-scale deposit of grain waste from a Geneva plant into the water, said Case.

Throughout the years, group members have indeed hunted the ducks. But the real focus of their activities has been on education and environmental stewardship, said Oliver. The list of community service projects the group has completed in its 55 years is long and diverse.

For 34 years, the club ran an extensive banding program in conjunction with the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Group members and community volunteers trapped ducks, put bands on their legs and released them, later marking down where they were found. More than 48,000 ducks were banded and tracked, and the data gathered provided scientists with valuable information about the birds’ migration habits and life spans.

Through the Raymond Russell Junior Duck Club initiative, the Duck Hunters for years donated mallard eggs and incubators to schools for use in teaching about the avian life cycle. The group has sponsored scholarships for Finger Lakes Community College students majoring in conservation and has paid for hundreds of children to go to summer DEC camp.

Group members also funded and participated in a habitat improvement project in wetlands at High Tor. They donate funds to national and regional hunting organizations and have helped fund the preservation of Squaw Island on Canandaigua Lake.

Over the half-century it has been in existence, the group’s membership has grown from 20 men to over 200 men and women. For many members, the draw is being able to give back to the environment and better understand — and appreciate — the quarry they hunt.

“I just love the outdoors — and it makes me feel gratified that if I harvest something, I am able to replenish it,” said Oliver.

Contact Hilary Smith at (585) 394-0770, Ext. 343, or at hsmith@mpnewspapers.com

http://www.mpnnow.com/news/x688586322