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02-22-2019, 07:57 AM | #3 | ||||||
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I imagine with the wood ducks it is early arrivals but we have a great blue heron, a kingfisher, mallards, hooded mergansers, eastern bluebirds, flocks of robins, and other birds all winter long that I would have expected to migrate away. And my local Shawaheen River has been completely frozen over for much of the time. But as soon as it thaws enough to show a bit of open water they’re on it immediately. I guess we may be witnessing some kind of phenomenon or maybe there really is a climate change going on. But maybe the fact that I’m only about 35 miles from the ocean has a lot to do with at least the waterfowl staying nearby and the Merrimack River is less than 6 miles away helps to explain it.
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02-22-2019, 02:05 PM | #4 | ||||||
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One observation I made is that about 75% of the ducks I flushed were black ducks. The other 25% were mallards. When I was a boy hunting the Great Swamp, black ducks were rare. You see them once and a while, but they were not common. I left them alone and never shot them although the law said that I could take one a day. Now, they are the predominant wintering over duck species in the swamp. It's good to see them in numbers, something I never saw in the old days. The woodduck numbers are relatively the same as in the old days but now there seems to be more mallards. So some things do improve over time.
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02-22-2019, 02:27 PM | #5 | ||||||
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There may seem to be more mallards but the truth is that the mallards are on the decline over some of their historic range.
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__________________
"I'm a Setter man. Not because I think they're better than the other breeds, but because I'm a romantic - stuck on tradition - and to me, a Setter just "belongs" in the grouse picture." George King, "That's Ruff", 2010 - a timeless classic. |
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02-22-2019, 03:17 PM | #6 | |||||||
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Quote:
I absolutely love the swamp and have always spent time there, much of it during the off season. There are relatively few access points that don’t require a long walk in. Most of the hunting is done near roads or on the WMA at the southern end. The core of the swamp is virtually unvisited and I pretty much have it to myself. Most hunters like to hunt areas that don’t require a lot of effort to get to. The swamp encompasses about 6,000 acres, most of it inaccessible to the casual weekend hunter. It’s a special area that has always been an important part of my life. |
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02-26-2019, 10:37 AM | #7 | ||||||
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One more note. As I mentioned, the squeal of the hen woodduck is my favorite wild sound. I like it even better than the loon. The hens generally squeal when flushed but they also squeal when resting and feeding. I like to jump shoot the beaver ponds and the streams leading into them. Generally, I can pinpoint where the ducks are by listening for squealing hens. I then approach them extra carefully to get within sure range before they flush. I don’t kill the hens so I found it important not to shoot the leading duck which is always the hen. Except for the wings, there is not much color to the woodduck hen which is rather drab. But I still find it a beautiful duck in its own way.
Fortunately, there are a lot of oak trees in my favorite areas of the swamp. The acorns fall into the water and the ducks pick them floating on the surface. It is absolutely amazing how many acorns they can stuff into their crops. I have no idea how they can swallow the rather large acorns. There is a primary area that the woodducks use for a night time roost. They come in large numbers just before dark. I like to sit there and watch them. The hens tend to be particularly vocal when on the roosting site and the sound of all those squeels is sublime. I never shoot a woodduck roost. Doing so continually can push them out of the area. It is important to shoot them on the feeding and daytime resting areas only. Roosts should always be off limits for shooting woodducks, in my opinion. |
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02-26-2019, 12:13 PM | #8 | ||||||
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Years ago, I shot several woodies which each had 17 acorns in their throat. Each acorn had the "hat" peeled off. I don't know how they are able to pop the tops off. I can't do it with my thumb. I wonder how much food do those 17 acorns represent. A day? two days, a week?
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02-27-2019, 08:56 AM | #9 | ||||||
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We see a few wood ducks each year along the Mohawk river near Schenectady, NY down to where it meets the Hudson river in January during our annual waterfowl counts. I never considered they could be returning birds, but they certainly could be. I just wrote them off as hardy late departures staying a little longer when food remained accessible.
I would say that we see them in years where the temps are warmer through December and early January and there is a lot of open water on count day. During years when the temps are frigid and everything is frozen up, wood duck numbers are very low or absent. Our count over the last 15 years has averaged about (rough estimate from memory) 90:10 mallards to black ducks, but that has been changing toward more black ducks. This past January the ratio more like 80:20. As Dean pointed out, this could be due to a reduction in mallard numbers rather than an increase in black duck numbers. My one notable wood duck story was the time I was trout fishing along the Kayaderosseras Creek near Wilton, NY. I was fishing a stretch that wound through a heavily wooded area and at one point something caught my eye above the creek bank. It turned out to be a drake wood duck "stuck" to the trunk of a tree about 20 feet up. I was able to climb up to check it out and found that it had flown into the tree head on and impaled itself on a broken-off branch stub. |
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03-13-2019, 06:19 PM | #10 | ||||||
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I've been spending a lot of time with the ducks of the Great Swamp. Actually, I've been visiting different areas of the swamp every day. Today I saw two pairs of woodducks in addition to the pair I saw earlier. The first pair I saw shocked me, but the dual pair I saw today was less shocking but still surprising. I have never seen woodducks in the swamp at this time of year but, then again, I am spending a lot more time with the ducks since I retired. I doubt the woodies wintered over. They are probably early arrivals from further south. I don't know for sure, but I sure as heck get a kick out of seeing them.
Clark the retriever and I will do another section of the swamp tomorrow. I'm loving retirement and spending days in the swamp, one of my favorite places on earth. |
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