New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff
Ducks galore and more.
Wednesday 02/09/2005
Well, let me catch up on what has been happening since last week. My Thursday night lecture at the Beaver Brook Association had about 20 folks just filled with questions and comments during and after my hour-long slide presentation. I really enjoy a group such as this that is really into all sorts of wildlife like me. We could have gone on endlessly it seems. It was snowing hard when I left around 9:00 PM.
Saturday I led another group of outdoor enthusiasts on a 4-hour hike into Hayes Marsh in Bear Brook State Park to conduct my annual check of the dozen or so duck nesting boxes.It was a hike co-sponsored by the Allenstown Conservation Commission and the Friends of the Suncook River. The boxes have been on this marsh since Fish and Game first created the wetland probably nearly 50 years ago.
I started with a safety talk to the 20 adults and kids gathered for the 45 minute hike in to the marsh. I had one fellow volunteer to carry my pack basket with a rope and throwing device should be need to haul anyone out. I told them to stay away from the beaver lodges and to follow me in single file while on the ice and keep a space between themselves. The high water of early January has made for a tough year on the swamps. The receding water has left hollow areas under the ice and ice that would normally support me is breaking because it is not setting on the water.
I also said the first box would be the most dangerous as there was a flowing channel nearby. We all, well almost all, made it to the first box with only one person's foot dropping through the ice. As I looked up from opening the first box I could see a group of ladies about 50 yards away AT THE BEAVER LODGE, exactly where I told them to stay away from. Well as they headed toward us they walked right into a channel and one was up to her waist in water real quickly. Somehow the others fished her out without falling in themselves. They headed home soon after.
Ever single duck box we checked had the remnants of a successful duck nest, mostly hooded mergansers, and two boxes had different bird nests. It was a fantastic hike as far as I am concerned. Two or three others did drop a foot or lower leg through the ice as well, including me at the last box, where I left the others behind to "test" a trail across a channel to the box. Soon I was in water almost to my knees. Several of us stopped for a quick fire and cooked a few hot dogs before heading out as the day was perfectly sunny and temperatures climbed into the 50's.
Monday was a dues paying day for me as I headed way south to count more inland ducks. Nashua and Bedford were full of them. Four hundred at one site in Bedford and a couple hundred each at several sites in Nashua. It was a day of traffic, traffic lights and lots of ducks. These mallards sure have learned to survive our winters by moving into the cities and begging food. I'm sure I counted well over a thousand ducks on Monday.
Tuesday was a duck banding day in Dover. A post season banding effort we have done at this site since about 1990. I fired the rocket net as usual as a team from the Region 3 office in Durham and Julie Robinson were ready to dash down the hill from the farm to keep the ducks from slipping out from under the net. It looked bad at first as the ducks shied away from the bait even though they are fed at this site daily. One of the owners spread some more corn and called the ducks over and slipped away as I waited to fire the rockets.
Boom... it went as most of the ducks finally gathered on the corn. We managed to catch 91 ducks; Mostly mallards, including about 20 recaptures. One of the recapture's bands was very old and hardly discernable. I bet it is on a very old mallard. We have had others at this site that were nearly 20 years old. Thanks to all the help from the Region 3 Marine staff we quickly had the ducks banded and all safely released. It was a great day.
A major Northeaster is predicted for tomorrow. Our snow has quickly vanished from the last big storm and today the snow is melting again on my roof as I type. There is only about 4 or 5 inches on the ground today but another 20 to 30 is predicted for tomorrow. I hope they are wrong!
