Nesting Platforms?

Bob Reitmeyer

Bob Reitmeyer

Active member
Last year we partnered with Rutgers University to place this floating wetland in the detention basin behind my building. General idea is to create a floating platform for plants from synthetic material and keep it afloat with marine grade materials. We drilled holes so that plants would have a place to root. This spring I noticed we seemed to have a nesting pair of Canada geese, although I did also see mallards. The platform is about 3' by 8' which should be ample for geese. I wonder if halving it would make it to small for geese so that mallards would avoid the competition? View attachment IMG_2770 (00000002).JPGView attachment IMG_3418 (00000002).JPG
 
Making it smaller will not discourage the geese. We use similar platforms that are only 4'X4' for geese all the time.

What you want for nesting Mallards are nesting tunnels or tubes. Mallards prefer to be up a bit from the waters surface, more so than the geese. The geese can not/will not use the tubes so are not competing with the Mallards for the same structure.



View attachment ducknesttube4.jpg
 
You will also find, in most cases, that floating nest platforms for ducks are far more susceptible to predation than a nest tube on a pole.
 
Thanks for the great information Dave and Nick. Given that my office building is nearby and the lawn around this basin gets mowed do you think this would be a suitable location for the mallard nesting tubes and/or wood duck boxes? We don't mow down to the water's edge. Thanks!
 
Bob Reitmeyer said:
Thanks for the great information Dave and Nick. Given that my office building is nearby and the lawn around this basin gets mowed do you think this would be a suitable location for the mallard nesting tubes and/or wood duck boxes? We don't mow down to the water's edge. Thanks!
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IMHO this would be an acceptable and desirable location for either species. They are both pretty tolerable of human presence.
 
Bob, Deltawaterfowl has great plans and video on building "henhouses" for mallards. Also one of our members posted up his floating goose platform in use, don't remember who it was. I do remember it was 4x4'. Hope this helps.
 
Thanks again Dave. I sure don't want to invite nesting ducks to a bad situation.

Bill, thanks and I will take a look. I've read that the eastern flyway population of mallards is declining so maybe a little help nesting would be good. I've got a good supply of 2" thick synthetic pond filter I may try to repurpose
 
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