Pool Cover Banded Mallards

D

Dave Hughes

Active member
These Mallards stayed for hours at a time from April to the middle of May. They would stand around on the sides preening and then swim and bath in the water on the cover for hours. They would get up and circle around the neighborhood and come bacl like homing pigeons. The first day we saw them my son says "hey dad there are ducks on the pool cover". I said yeah right Chase, not believing him. He then says "I think they are married dad they both are wearing rings". Then it hit me he wasn't messing around. I then went and looked and couldn't believe their was a pair of banded mallards swimming on the cover of the swimming pool. I have only shot a banded goose and a banded drake mallard in 20 years of hunting, nothing like the guy in the Cabela's magazine...lol. Here are some pictures;

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Some very nice pictures. I was looking at the drake and wondering where his white ring around the neck went. You mentioned getting only two banded birds in 20 years. I started duck hunting in 1954 and got my first banded duck in 2002.
I'll bet if Rob shot these banded mallards and added them to his collection on his lanyard, he wouldn't be able to hold his head up because of the additional weight! (insert smiley face)
Al
 
I figured tamies when I read the title, but those sure look like Federal bands to me. Thanks for giving me a shot of excitement for the upcoming season!
 
Being as I have hunted well over 30 years and still have no bands, nor been with anyone who has shot a banded bird, I am fairly certain those mallards would have suffered some type of duckie heart attack, or maybe the chlorine got to them. Either way, I'm certain they would have "mysteriously" died never to waddle their little butts around again.

Mark W
 
My dad came over and kept threatening to use a fishing net on them..LOL...he has been hunting ducks for over forty years with no bands..The mallard drake I got four years ago that was banded came in a flock of about nine ducks and landed in front of us..my dad was just walking back from answering the call of nature and didn't have his gun yet. I fired at a drake mallard with three shots and missed it...the duck about three yards behind it and to the right fell and flipped over on its back....I looked at my dad and asked if he fired at the same time as me and I saw he didn't even have his gun yet. I walked out and got it and it was banded...when I got back I dropped it in front of him and he saw the band and he threatened to hit me over the head with the gun and take the band...lol. I said if you could have held your bladded longer you might have gotten it. Then I told him that poor shooting was the only reason I got a band he really got steamed...lol.

Rob...it was too cool to see the banded pair coming back every day to swim on the pool than to worry about the cover being ruined it was its third season and had to be replaced for this winter anyway.
 
Rob...it was too cool to see the banded pair coming back every day to swim on the pool than to worry about the cover being ruined it was its third season and had to be replaced for this winter anyway.
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I was thinking more about what You would tell the Game Warden. It is a set of Cool Photos.
 
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