March 2008
Deering Conservation Commission
Wood Duck Restoration Report 2007
This was a good year for the percentage of hatched eggs to unhatched eggs at 74% to 26%. The overall 14 year average is 63% to 37 % hatched.
In 47 boxes checked, there were a total of 120 eggs, with 89 hatched and 31 unhatched. The good news is that ducks continue to use in our boxes at a fairly steady rate.
As is normal, some productive areas driven by beaver activity have turned into meadows as beaver dams have been breached. We hope that boxes in areas newly flooded areas will replace those lost and will be productive.
Duck Boxes generally last about 10 years and we lose about 10% to tree blow downs. We have built 8 new boxes, replaced 3 boxes to date, and thus are on near target for maintaining our number of boxes.
One problem we face is that certain productive areas no longer have any trees to support boxes. One solution was to put boxes on pipe. Unfortunately, even 14’ pipe often are not stable in the silt deep marsh bottoms, and sink down or fall over. Another solution was to mount boxes on trees that border the marsh. To date, these boxes with “dry feet” have not been used at nearly the same rate.
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For more information call Ed Cobbett at 464-3265 or Gary Bono at 464-5107
DUCKreort08
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