holloway Posted August 21 Report Share Posted August 21 Of late i have started to notice that corvids are now beginning to see duck nest tubes as recommended by Basc and others as an easy meal ticket .They have at least locally ,apparently learnt that they can negate long fruitless hours of searching for nest by merely staking out these man made constructions ,or at least maintaining a regular watch on the proceedings within. As we all know corvids are not stupid and i think all we have done with nest tubes is advertised potential nest sites and easy pickings ,time will tell if this happens all around the country . I personally would not advertise the use of such artificial structures as it is now resulting in carnage ! please monitor your own tubes and give feedback ,some areas will probably take a little time but i am sure in time nest tubes will be largely discredited. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blankfirer Posted September 1 Report Share Posted September 1 The general licence is farsical loads a shooters just leave crows even while shooting other birds because of fear of prosecution Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wildfowlingmad Posted September 3 Report Share Posted September 3 If I may, I think that there needs to be a little more science before we say stop putting up nest tubes. I am not going to dig around to quote it, but nest tubes are proven to improve nesting sucess in mallard. GWCT and others have long known that a species needs 3 things to grow: food, habitat and predator control. Known as 'the three stalls'. The nest tubes enhance one specfic part (nesting habitat) of those 3 elements. For the mallard in this case to boom in number the other two parts need to compliment the nesting habitat. In this case, as you have observed crows are the predator species that need controlling. Therefore the take away from this observation should be some corvid control by whatever means are most appropriate to the situation is the nest step to boost the mallard population. By settling all three stalls in order, we can set the conditions for significant population growth. If I lived near you, I would volunteer to get after those corvids myself! It would be interesting to hear if any other crows have learnt this behaviour (hopefully not), or if you just have a few local ones that have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jall25 Posted September 3 Report Share Posted September 3 On 21/08/2024 at 23:10, holloway said: Of late i have started to notice that corvids are now beginning to see duck nest tubes as recommended by Basc and others as an easy meal ticket .They have at least locally ,apparently learnt that they can negate long fruitless hours of searching for nest by merely staking out these man made constructions ,or at least maintaining a regular watch on the proceedings within. As we all know corvids are not stupid and i think all we have done with nest tubes is advertised potential nest sites and easy pickings ,time will tell if this happens all around the country . I personally would not advertise the use of such artificial structures as it is now resulting in carnage ! please monitor your own tubes and give feedback ,some areas will probably take a little time but i am sure in time nest tubes will be largely discredited. Not had any issues on our with Corvids raiding them We have circa 30 / 35 and this year they have been so well used i have refurbed once or twice in the season - produced hundreds of ducklings ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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