With being out of town I think I missed the opportunity for the mallard pair to use my straw 'mallard tube' nest. They were on the pond before I left but now the neighbor sees them in the adjacent woods so may be tending a nest there. I rehabbed the mallard tube, added a layer of thin plastic in between the straw layers to keep the inside dry and mounted it in the pond. Maybe it will still get spotted and used by another nesting pair.
I will try again to attract a wood duck. My son thought maybe my 2" PVC tube is 'too bright white' and the ducks don't like it. We moved the location to west side of pond facing east and I did my best to disguise the pole. I didn't have the correct plastic primer and probably nothing sticks to PVC anyway. So used up a half a can of metal self etching gray primer and then top coated that with a random can of rubberized spray undercoating which is more brown than black. We'll see how that holds up. Added fresh pine shavings and fingers crossed. Again probably too late in the season but who knows.
Pond is nice and full but it has been very dry and hot this week so you can see the level drop as the unpainted part of the pole shows up bright white as the water drops. Minnows are active and the first few American Toad pairs are swimming around in the pond already.
I'm down to about a dozen large unwanted koi/goldfish hybrids and they are getting very good at not biting hooks. At one time the pond had about 300 in it. Will continue to reward the kids for any goldfish caught!
