My little 6 month old Chesapeake bay retriever loves our pond! It was almost 100dg this day and the pond felt oh so good!

AIR DOGGGGGGGG!

Man, that's what it's all about Salty. Super pics, man. The water looks great!

Beautiful pond...beautiful dog. Nice pics, too!

That little dog is a fetching machine! I want to build a dock so he can really fly! I let him out of his kennel in the Am and he just grins at me waiting to hit the water! He will swim for hours! It is funny to watch him jump and dive after the BG when they see if he is food!

Great pics.Great story

Cool Pics, I have a Golden Retriever that I tried to train to jump into the water to fetch. He refuses to go in past the point where he can't reach the bottom. Other than that he loves the water.

Your dog does not seem to have a problem with deep water.

I noticed the duck nesting box ( for Wood ducks?) Have you had any luck getting them to use it? I was thinking of setting a few up this winter after the pond fills up some more..

The wood duck boxes have had a 150% nesting rate. meaning that some have had two nesting’s a year. The goose float has been hit and miss. I have had two good years on geese and the mallard nest have done far with 2 broods in 4 years. Face your wood duck boxes to the south but offset the front of the box so they can not see each other from the opening or the males will fight like crazy! Also make sure you have a rat wire stapled on the inside of the box under the hole so the ducklings can climb out. I no longer use the large metal predator gaurds I use a 6in PVC pipe screwed to the post and I grease it to stop bugs and snakes and it keeps out coons etc.

Hey salt...can you provide better pics of the mallard nesting facilities? I've had zero luck with what I built...they just seem to prefer the creek bottom and I'd like to seem them a bit closer.

I am at work and do not have any pics of the ones I build but go to this link and look at Delta’s. I do the same thing but use REAL vegetation. Make one roll and line the outside then make a bigger roll and hog ring the larger wire roll over the smaller roll with the bedding in-between. Then hang it over the water on T-fence post. I bait my pond and wetland heavily in the spring and I practice predator control around my boxes. I have another farm pond that I hunt that I have had fantastic success with the mallards hoops. I have a picture at home of 1 hen in the nest and another nesting on top! Hope this helps. Look at the hen house over the water. Cost is cheap and the work well. Here is the link http://www.dakotanesting.com/order.htm

We installed 2 Mallard factories Spring of 2007. To date, I have not seen activity within them, though we have had Mallards on the pond. I should add that we don't ever have much time to inspect them since our visits are infrequent and that time is spent working to develop other areas of the property.

Brettski

WOW great pond and wet land pics! How have the blue bird boxes worked out. I have had a hard time keeping out English house sparrows. I bet I have shot 4 boxes of 20 ga shells killing them and they just keep evicting my blue birds.

I work with a group of water fowlers and we have extensive wet land projects in PA, MD, and DE. I love your nesting boxes but wonder what your nesting rate is? Some of the boxes seem danger close. Nesting competition can be stressful on the birds and an over nesting can deplete the raw sources of protean needed when the ducklings are born. On some of our projects we have had to half our nest sites but it increased our success rate by as much as 90%. On our mallard nest we have noticed that height from the water can be an issue. The mallards shy away from nest above 5ft.
PS do you have any plains for the blue bird boxes they look cool,and I love the way you have all on hinges must make it nice to clean out!

Salt-man,
Go to the post above that I made showing the Peterson BB boxes. There is a link within. I kinda altered the plan to use all 3/4" thick stock and it worked out great. The hinge is nothing more than 2 aluminum nails, one from each side. The front panel pivots on the nails. We continue to have good success with BB nesting.
-
I kinda thought and worried that I was over-crowding the zone with nesting boxes. When I go to clean them out this winter, I will see if there was any nesting activity. Perhaps the plan should be to remove the center 2 boxes...? The height of the hole is right at 5 feet over the water.

Hi guys: I don't know if this is the appropriated place to make this suggestion, but I haven't seen any other post that lends itself to such an issue. Seveal weeks ago when I began to wade my pond placing structure, and staying in the water waist deep for extended periods of time with may different types of materials, it occurred to me to get a boster DPT shot (tetnus). You never know what you may or may not run into and "better safe than sorry". Again, may not be the place, but the moderators will decide that. My doctor said it was a very smart thing to do. It's the old ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, although my wife would like for me to get lock jaw on occassion, as I'm sure most of you would too, by now. heeeee

Andy,

The pup looks good! Have you started the second pond yet?

Brian

As usual, I'm late chiming in on this thread...but seeing those pics of your dog "Air" are hilarious!

You do know "Air" really wants the chance to fetch a duck, right? Any chance of waterfoul in those tender chompers?

jimmydee, I didn't see your comment as I was distracted by "Air" !

Your words are wise, so are flu shots...but I'm just too dang lazy to do either. I only get the tetnus shot when I accidentally slice myself open. But, I do swim in my ponds all the time, living on the edge Life is Good!

Eastland'That pup will start in October on early ducks, then it will be a long season for him as we have a professional guide service here on the Easternshore. Between snow geese ducks and Canada geese that pup may see 500 plus birds this year. Last year my partner and I combined with charters killed over 700 snow geese alone not counting ducks and dark geese. For me a pup is more than just a hobby he shall be a working asset to earn his kibble! My partners yellow lab did well over 500 retrieves last season. I lost my dog to a car in early October so I was dogless!

Salty, it's really cool to spend time like that with a dog, I wish I was in your area, I would book a trip just to hang out and see the new pup in action. I too will be training a pup this year on doves, but I have no experience. I have a teather, training decoy, scent...and threw away the whistle, my pop taught me how to do that I just know that the first bird I shoot, my pup is going to try to eat it !

Here is my retriever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38ugRCd-hm8

All ready for Cornish Game Duck season.

For the past two months we've had a pair of black bellied whistling ducks hanging out at the pond. Hopefully, they're expanding their range a little. While not as handsome as wood ducks, they seem to be far less wild. Get closer than about one hundred yards and they fly to the other side of the pond but they don't abandon the premises. According to the literature, they will use a nesting box. We'll certainly see about that. Do any of you have experience with these ducks?

nil for me Dudley
(edit; I just googled it; no wonder I wouldn't know squat about whistling ducks, considering they don't venture this far north)

I have seen whistling ducks before but not at the pond. Don't know about the species though. We are seeing more ducks than normal at the ponds. They like fish food.

Strange that you mention this Ewest. The last time I was up at our property I observed several of our resident ducks whistling the theme from "The Bridge over the River Kwai". I tried to video tape the event but every time I pointed the video camera at them they just went back to normal duck behavior. I would put down the camera and once again the whistling would start. At one point the ducks were all marching in a straight line along the shoreline and whistling the song, it was almost as if they were taunting me. I would never have mentioned this but since you are reporting whistling ducks I felt, heck if Ewest is hearing whistling ducks then no one will be able to ridicule me for hearing whistling ducks.

JHAP, it's a good thing your integrity has such a stellar reputation. A few of the things you post would be a little hard to believe, otherwise. (rolleyes)

Very true. If it wasn't for the fact that this is posted on the Internet then I almost wouldn't believe it.

Say, did I ever tell you the story of the time I was in Pennsylvania and I came across a bear with a whistle?

Do tell?? I have encountered a few bears here but never a whistler....