Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat DUCKS in the POND/GRASS Areas

We put up two wooden duck house hoping to get ducks. Well, when my hubby was cutting grass yesterday he saw a Momma duck and baby ducks trailing her come out of the tall grass; he believe they have nested in the tall grass as the big duck would be too big to get my my boxes(that we have near the pond to catch any dirt etc to keep it out of the pond). I haven't seen them yet. Do you think since they were born here the baby ones will come back each year? I assume they are Mallards, I haven't seen them...the way he describe the size of the Momma duck, she'd be too big to be a wood duck, right? I understand those are really small.

A standard wood duck box has a fairly small entrance hole. The hole always appears too small for the duck, but they can shrink their feathers down and get in and out just fine. At a distance, mallard hens look a lot like wood duck hens. So I wouldn't rule out that you have a woodie there. If you can't get close enough for an ID, you may be able to spot the drake. Then there won't be any doubt.

It always appeared to me that the female wood duck was about half the size of a mallard hen.

I built a wood duck house and put it as high as my frontloader would get me in a pine tree about 4 years ago. I would do it completely different today. The box is now about 3-4' out of reach to clean and I can't keep the snakes(Rat, I believe)from stealing eggs. Yesterday, I heard a commotion in the box from across the pond. It was the momma Whistling Duck fighting off the snake inside the box. The snake made it out of the box with egg in mouth only to kiss a 17g. hollowpoint from my 17CAL. My next duck box be installed on an aluminum pole that snakes can't climb.

That is a thought. I still haven't put a critter protector on mine to keep snakes out. I need to do that. We saw a duck today at a petting zoo for the grandchild and my hubby thought it look like that but smaller, he wasn't sure either. Guess, I'm going to have to go on a duck hunt.

We recently saw a female duck with ducklings on the pond. She had a distinctive white ring around her eyes, a marking typical for a hen wood duck. Shorty also noted to check teals for similar markings...?

This is our anthology on Wood Duck nesting box construction and pole installation.

A gentleman a few miles north of here had his pond surrounded with wood duck boxes made of driftwood sticks - complete with gaps between the sticks 1/2 to 3/4 inch wide. Yep, all occupied.