Flight Ponds

 

In spite of the continued drainage of many of our natural wetlands, there are still hundreds of thousands of little streams, springs, marshy corners - as well as actual ponds, wet gravel pits and reservoirs - that are not producing anything like the wildfowl they could if the habitat and the ducks themselves were protected and managed to provide a shootable surplus. The main duck species which is managed for shooting in Britain is the mallard and it is this bird with which this section is chiefly concerned. Most of the advice does however relate to other dabbling ducks too.

Flight ponds are usually easy enough to make, given a suitable site. A little digging, damming, bulldozing or blasting will soon create attractive pools. Over planting and the regular provision of food will, in due course, bring the fowl in, unless there are no flyways or natural feeding and roosting areas anywhere near. Although it is often surprising where ducks are to be found - in the middle of forests and on high moors - one cannot expect any weight of duck to materialise out of thin air.

If the weather is right and the hides are well sited, fighting can provide exciting, difficult shooting. Equally ducks can flop in like chickens and afford poor sport. Many pools are shot too often. Once a month is probably enough, or the future breeding population can become seriously depleted.

Some flight-pond owners rear and release a number of young mallard every year to replenish their stocks and to provide a 'lead-in' for wild birds when they begin to fly, exploring the area around the release point. This can be selective if the ducks are from a good wild strain, and if they are carefully acclimatised in a non-shooting area. Often, however, the 'replacement stock' - like duck that are reared for shooting - can become too tame, too fat, and too cosseted. Duck which are reared in captivity and then released in unsuitable areas with insufficient food are very likely to starve to death. In such places they appear to find it difficult to change to a diet of natural foods. When hand-reared duck are released onto any area, they can be helped over the transition from artificial to natural food by careful supplementary feeding, with the amount being gradually reduced over several weeks. This will also hold the birds in the area until they are acclimatised.

The creation of wild duck breeding reservoirs, sometimes with the use of nesting baskets which can permit very high densities on small areas, is in many places the surest way of increasing duck numbers. But care must be taken to see that the environment is capable of supporting the ducklings which are hatched. Otherwise it would be better to let the ducks nest where they please.

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