WaterfowlForum.Net

Saw the below post from Cohen wildlife lab and it blew my mind. I've always joked "a pit every 40 acres". Turns out I wasn't conservative enough with my joke!!! Talk about pressure. Sheesh. People look at me funny when I won't tell them exactly where I hunt, even if it's on private. This is why.

Pressure is really a thing, more so now than ever.

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Dang, looks more like firing lines!!!!!!

I was looking to kick the valve open on my little 1 acre woody hole but I always check boxes first. All 3 had eggs and one had a hen that was sitting on the nest. I scared her more than she scared me, I think. At her box, there was a moccasin parked 5’ away like an English pointer looking at her box. Right after we dispatched it we found another one curled up on the bank looking intently at the the box as well. That one didn’t survive either. Another box had two fairly freshly dead babies in it along with 5 unhatched eggs. Little ones had fire ants all over them. Never seen fire ants swim to a duck box before, but now I have. Not sure if the ants killed them or something else. Maybe they couldn’t climb out even though we have wire up on the inside of the box? It’s a miracle we have any damn ducks at all. Left the valve closed for another few weeks.

The great sage Roseanne Roseannadanna pegged it, "If it's not one thing, it's another."

Haven't talked to Lizzy, the grad student doing the study since helping spot test sites for fake nests, but heard third-hand the other day that her mottled duck nest predation study suggested gallinules and rails are the worst culprits. Knew coots were an issue on more northern breeding grounds, but somehow never thought of their little cousins getting in on it.

Damn red ants!!!! I've seen them in balls, floating on top of the water when the rivers are up. Did not know that coots and gallinules were duck nest predators, the bastages!