A pair of mallards have apparently decided to take up residence in our backyard. When I got up Saturday morning they were in the backyard eating the popcorn my daughter put out for the squirrels (don’t ask) but flew away when we opened the back door. They appeared again Monday morning but again, when I let the dog out, they flew away. They were back again this morning but instead of pecking around the yard eating, they were both sitting in the flower bed near the shed. This time they didn’t fly away when we opened the door or when the dog went out (she was scared of them so she stayed on the other side of the yard). They were still here this evening when I got home from work.
Is it possible they are going to nest in my backyard? If so, what do I need to do to keep them safe? Do I need to do anything specia for them?
yes they will do that. they can tolerate people near, they nest in backyards and planters where people are frequent. if you want to be nice to them keep people and the dog away from moving close or threatening to them. watching them is a fun experience.
We don’t have a pool but my daughter has a small inflatable pool. She wants to fill it up for them. Do you think they would like that? (she wanted me to ask that)
It’s better than nothing. Give them some cracked corn to eat. You can usually get that at an outdoor flower shop. Lacking cracked corn, give them some bread.
If they like you, they’ll come back year after year after year.
If the ducks have a source of food, they won’t leave. Mallards don’t migrate, anyway.
Markxxx
I live alongside a lagoon (retention pond, anyway) along with others in my development. We have quite a number of mallards, and a couple recently had some ducklings. (Out of 11, 4 have survived.) Two Canada geese also have made our lagoon a home, and they recently had three goslings (who have all survived). I feed them cracked corn, and others feed them bread. They come to my unit looking for a free meal constantly. The babies are cute, and they grow fast. The mallards have already abandoned the ducklings (after less than a week), but the geese are still staying with their babies (over a week). We have hawks come, but they’ve been coming anyway. An osprey comes almost daily, but it eats fish. We’ve had an eagle or two also. We also have plenty of shorebirds (herons - great blue, little blue, night herons -, egrets), grebes, even two wood ducks have visited, along with other shorebirds and sandpipers. We welcome them and they are beautiful to look at. I have not seen any skunks, raccoons, or foxes. I have two cats who are always scratching for moles and such. (I hope we don’t have any foxes around.)
Although Canada geese have normally been migrants, since they find food here they see no reason to leave. Some may complain that they shouldn’t be fed because they are not native. So what? They live here now, and although they are kings of the hill, they will let the ducks eat so long as they can, too.
We kept a pair of Peking ducks (basic white ducks) for two years or so. We fed them Purina Duck Chow and the female would lay about five eggs a week. She was no good at sitting on them; we would have had to have gotten a brood hen to get ducklings. We had no varmints, but we were in the big city. We had a child’s plastic wading pool that we would dump and fill up again every day. They loved getting fresh water - lots of splashing and preening. Our yard loved the watering and the fertilizing. Those ducks were fun to watch. Noisy too, but not as bad as a rooster or dog.
I live in a suburb of Charleston, SC. Foxes have been spotted in Mt. Pleasant, east of the Cooper, and I’ve seen foxes at Charlestowne Landing State Park, but no foxes seen here in James Island, although we have plenty of raccoons and possums. I suppose there are some here, but they stay hidden. I’ve also seen a rattlesnake under my desk, which worries me some, especially since my cats have brought me some non-venomous snakes.
The Pekin ducks are just a variant of Mallards. Actually, we had them and them only when I first moved in in 1986. I fed them, too. For some reason, they disappeared. I think one of the owners brought them in. They would come right up to my window and play with my toes when I sat outside. They also would go into my storage place and crap all over it. So I keep the birds off my deck now. The geese would go right up if I let them, but I chase them off the steps when they get that far.
I have seen nesting even along public streets. The immediate areas have been temporarily fenced off with sinage by the DNR that disturbing them is a violation. Maybe a little fence around to prevent people and dogs from getting too close would make them feel more secure.
We have a mallard/drake pair that shows up in our neighborhood every Spring/Summer. There are several ponds in the neighborhood they normally hang out in, but they also seem to love stopping by and swimming in our pool most mornings. While I appreciate nature, I can’t stand them crapping in my pool, which they have done on a few occasions.
Second this. We had pet ducks when I was a kid and put in a metal tub of water for them to swim in. Unfortunately it was surrounded on 3 sides by chicken wire and slightly tilted backwards so there was a gap between the water and the lip of the tub. Guess how we found out… the adults didn’t have a problem getting in and out, but the ducklings did and several drowned:(
Up here in the burbs north of Seattle, we have a couple of ducks (mallards) that have visited us each year (6 years in a row now). They usually show up around March and stop showing up around September… I’m not sure whether they migrate or not, but they’re definitely not asking for food in the winter.
They haven’t nested, nor have we seen any young. However, part of the summer we’ll only see one at a time rather than both at once, so I think they’re nesting nearby where they have the benefit of more ducks around. We even tried making them a nice little nesting spot per instructions we found on the web but no luck.
They haven’t brought any other friends with them, so it remains two. I’m assuming this means it’s the same two.
We used to feed them a lot of assorted scraps like old bread, but started buying proper duck food from the local feed and supply. Not only do we feel better about the nutrition, but the crows and squirrels don’t seem to eat the duck food. (So the squirrels get nuts, the crows get bread and everyone coexists happily).
They have us very well trained. In the summer, we keep our windows open all the time and they’ll sit outside at 5 am and quack until we feed them. My wife sees that as cute and gets up to feed them; I can sleep through it.
I checked my The Sibley Guide to Birds re the migration issue. Surprisingly to me, mallards and Canada geese have very similar ranges. According to those maps, both of them should be here (in SC and also through much of the south) only in the winter and throughout the rest of the country year round (summer range being in Canada). So the mallards here are not native, either. Having lived in Illinois many years and seeing them year round there, I assumed it is the same here. They are in Illinois year round. Well, both species are also here year round now, too. In Seattle, mallards are year round, but just north they are just summer birds, except for along the coast, where they also are found year round.
