crazy wood ducks

[fishkid]

so i wake up look in my back yard and theres a male wood duck sitting up on our bird house 20 feet in the air, and a female waddeling around our back yard. then the male flew down to the female. After they walked around for a bit they flew on top of our wood fence and just perched on it like robins or a blue jay. It was crazy i have never seen wood ducks sit on a fence before or up on a bird house. I thought it was kinda weird because there is no water in our back yard they just came from no where.

[bear204]

sitting outside today for break a pair of honkers came flying in one landed on the ground the other one landed on the roof of the kohls and kept honking for a couple of minutes then finally flew down to its mate. The birda are crazy when their in love

[walleyefisher0990]

hey joe are they still in your backyard? that would be pretty sweet to have woodies nesting in your yard.

[Dean Schellinger]

We live right it the middle of town, and during the spring we get mallards flying around our house because our neighbor has a bird feeder and they always come eat there. But almost every year I will see a mallard or two just sitting up on the roof of our house...funny as heck to see

[No_Net]

About a week a go some bodys and I were sitting outside of school and a hen turkey flew off the roof.

[Farley]

Last week I went outside to hop in the truck and there were two woodies (Drake and Hen) sitting on top of my tounnau cover. i didnt see them untill they got startled and flew up onto a nearby tree branch. I live in the sticks and we actually have a lot of woodies flying around but never seen them that close to the house.

[kc0myy]

I was walking in the back woods on the Annandale conseravion club. There is a creek down there. and I jumped 2 woodies (drake&hen). Then today I went to a top of a hill. and watched them for a while. Is it too late to put a wook duck house up for this year chicks?

[fishingmike0770]

with all the rain these last couple of days, there are ducks all over the place. Caught this couple in my yard when i got home from school.

[BLACKJACK]

kc, I'd say go for it, its not too late. Just last weekend I had some wood ducks checking out my houses. What happens a lot is that two wood duck hens will lay eggs in the same nest and then when it gets up to 12-20, the dominant hen will take it over and do the incubation, so the lesser hen is off looking again for another nest spot. Go for it.

I'd like to put in another plug for wood duck houses mounted on a pole with predator guard. You can check them every day if you want, thats how I can count and see that its going up two per day. Easy access, no ladders, and 100% success rate (no predators!!) once they select your house.

[Gus]

Second year in a row now that I have a pair of mallards landing on my roof quite frequently.

[Diago]

What kind of predator guard do you use? Where can I get one?

[B. Amish]

i seen a hen wood duck land on top of a 60' silo once, kind of made a cool weather vane.

[BLACKJACK]

diago, goto woodducksociety (Contact US Regarding This Word) and look under their Best Practices, it has a printable diagram of a sheet metal predator guard and how to mount it on a post. Print that out and take it to a local sheet metal fabricator or furnace installer, they can make you one.

An alternative that I use is to find a 15 gallon jug, hospitals, dairy farmers, and other places get soaps and chemicals in them, rinse it out, cut off the end with the bungs in it, on the other end, cut a hole just a little bigger than your post. Take your 8 foot post, dig it in two feet, then you have 6 foot sticking out. About 4.5 feet up, put two 4 inch lag screw into the post, one on each a side, opposite each other. Screw them in only one inch. Then strip your 15 gallon jug over the post and it will rest on the two lags. You now have a predator guard that a coon can't get around because its too slippery for him to cling to and it also moves so he can't grip it. Final step is to mount your wood duck house above the guard. Try it, if you can find the jugs, its easier than it sounds. I didn't thnk that that five gallon pails would be big enough, if you look at a big coon, I think he'd get around a five gallon jug. I've had good luck with these guards, I've never had a coon get around it and best of all, the jugs are free. Good luck.