We're are the mallard this year????

[Ash it's em]

Hi I live in East Yorkshire and been inland flighting for about ten years and this year seems to be the worst year I have known for all that time. There seems to be no ducks around plenty of geese but no mallard . I asked my very experienced father in law he says it would be the rain in spring saying no flys so ducklings had nowt too eat. Which sounds right to me. We're i shoot is on his land along side the river hull ,by now I would be getting well in to six or seven a night , I feed my pond every other day from sept onwards but stopped end of sept as none was going , is anyone else going throw this??? Also noted the widgon are there which I leave a lone . But I walked all my stretch of river which is four mile or so and saw no mallard. What I have seen is a massive amount of cormorants ,could they be keeping them off???

Any advice would be appreciated

[Albert 888]

Wild mallard are in decline and as said by your father in law they are struggling to feed and find suitable nesting spots. I pearsonaly have only had two this year. They magority i see float up and down the river banks on the tide and dont fly. Its a bad year when you have shoot more pintail than mallard in my books.

[kent]

mallard are seen as a common duck being encouraged in a semi tame state in parks and reared and released on shoots, they are however in serious decline in the true wild state. suitable nesting and a safe from preditation area for the young to be raised is becoming a hard thing to find.

Look up West moorland wildfowlers and the work they are doing to help. i am not a baised member (i aint even in the club) but it is something we should all look to if we wish to keep the true wild sporting mallard.

I have shot two drakes on the marsh this season, i didn't shoot one last season and shot one the season before. Many eco systems are changing though and its hard to say how much cleaning up rivers effect these birds. good water quality dont mean a food rich duck diner. Remembering the parks and filthy marshes of the past i am thinking this might be part of it. used to have a great duck shoot near a river but it relied on a seepy slurry pit leaching into the fields and river- what would the EA think of that today? The duck loved it though

[silver pigeon 3]

Loads of Mallard early season down here, but i don't know how many are truly wild birds. We have quite a few flight ponds and shoots that put a lot of Mallard down around here and they find there way out onto the river, also birds that are left over at the end of the season do move away from where they were put down as lets face it a lot of these ponds offer no real habitat.

I suppose in time these birds do become part of the wild stock and breed, boosting the numbers.

[anser2]

In Norfolk the breeding season was very bad ,though a few late August broods did survive. The opening month however was average for mallard , but during October a lot of new mallard came in and the shooting was very good , but these birds have moved on and we are back to average numbers. Usualy mallard form about a quarter of the ducks I shoot in a season ( with most shot after christmas ) . So far this year they are about half of my bag , which for all species is down by about a quarter with wigeon being espically low.

 

The long term trend for UK breeding mallard is pretty stable , but with milder winters of the past 20 years ( 2010 excepted ) many mallard are staying much further north in Europe and do nolonger need to migrate to the UK. Another factor that may be causing a decline in mallard numbers is the introduction of non toxic shot. With the cost of Bismuth\tungsten , the most suitable pellets in game guns , many game shoots no longer put down mallard and I read a few years ago that game farms are selling around a quarter of a million less mallard than they did 20 years ago.

Edited November 27, 2012 by anser2

[ayano3]

After reading other posts they are all in Oxfordshire.

[Reabrook]

After reading other posts they are all in Oxfordshire.

 

Not for much longer. Too expensive apparently lol.

 

As SP3 said above we had a lot of Mallard on the Severn and surrounding counties early season in fact more than I have seen for a few years. I'm not convinced they are all released birds especially with regards to some of the inland birds but I have no proof of that its just a case of knowing my local ground. We are currently flooded around this way and most of the duck seem to have disappeared to newer or at least shallower pastures

[wildfowler.250]

I've had 8 mallard on the shore this year which is better than normal. I'm at uni which is 4 hours away from the marsh and didn't get out for a month. So numbers can't be too bad my way.

 

Only shot 1 wigeon though! Hearing them but not seeing. Plenty teal though.

[subsonicnat]

Just look at the cold and wet snap earlier, then to top it all rain by the bucket, (Everywhere):

And I`m afraid that is the Problem, TOO much Water, they are everywhere too;..

imagine all those fields that do not normally flood, its like ringing the dinner Bell:

[Ash it's em]

Thanks for all the replys do any one think the cormorants could be a problem??

[anser2]

Cormorants will not have any impact on mallard numbers.

[Yoggy]

The Nene Washes have had in my opinion a very decent year for Mallard. Myself and a couple of mates compared notes last week and we all agreed that we think the numbers are actually up from last year.

Since the Wash flooded more Wigeon have also arrived. Alot of fields are way to deep to allow the ducks to graze but there are still a good percentage that are ideal for them.