Hen houses welcome mallards for nesting
WHITEWATER - It wasn't spring yet, but for a trio of winter-hardened Wisconsinites, it sure felt like it.
The sun shined down on a mid-February day and the wind was so light it couldn't have carried a speck of cattail fluff.
And even though snow and ice covered the expansive marsh at Prince's Point Wildlife Area near Whitewater, we were engaged in an activity that pointed to the season ahead, too.
"This spot looks good," said Matt Bennett, 30, of Concord, nodding at a frozen bay on the wetland. "What mallard wouldn't want to raise a brood here?"
With that, Bennett, Paul Wait of New London and I snowshoed to a stop and set up shop.
The task at hand: erect a hen house, or elevated nesting platform for waterfowl.
Bennett is a member of and volunteer with the conservation organization Delta Waterfowl. Wait, 52, is the group's senior director of communications and editor of its magazine.
Delta Waterfowl calls itself the "duck hunters organization" and it knows hunting is better when there are more ducks.
So over the years it has focused heavily on means to increase duck production.
The nesting success of waterfowl species is challenged due to the impacts of predators, fluctuating water levels and loss of habitat, to name a few.
The use of wood duck nest boxes is credited with helping recover that species in the 20th century. Wisconsinites who spend time near wetlands are likely familiar with the sight of a vertical wood duck box on a pole.
But not many have seen a hen house. That could well be changing over the coming years.
"We've had great success with them in the Dakotas and in Canada," Wait said. "Now we're hoping to get more deployed in other states, too."
The structures are primarily designed for mallards, North America's most common duck and a favorite of waterfowlers.
Mallards are typically ground nesters. But such a natural site is prone to attacks from predators such as skunks and raccoons.
Delta Waterfowl research showed mallards that nest in hen houses are 12 times more likely to hatch their eggs than those on adjacent grasslands.
Thirty years of work, mostly in the Prairie Pothole Region that stretches from the Dakotas into Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, has shown hen houses are the most effective and costefficient tool to increase mallard production, according to Delta Waterfowl.
The structures are essentially 3-footlong, horizontal, grass-lined tubes mounted on a pole.
Although mallards don't typically nest several feet above the ground, they are agile and adaptable birds and easily utilize the human-made cylinders.
Bennett has installed six hen houses and 16 wood duck boxes at Prince's Point Wildlife Area.
The project started as a half-serious pledge a couple hunting seasons ago.
"I jokingly told a buddy I was going to put out a hen house for each hen I shot that year," Bennett said. "The more I thought about it, the more I realized it was something I had to do."
Like wood duck boxes, hen houses need routine maintenance before each nesting season.
Led by Sage, Bennet's Labrador retriever, we snowshoed out on the marsh at Prince's Point to clean out existing hen houses as well as put up a new one.
Each house was then lined with a fresh bed of timothy grass.
So far the impact of hen houses is limited in Wisconsin. But Delta estimates it will have about 10,000 of the structures erected by 2022, mostly in the PPR, which will produce more than 45,000 ducklings annually.
Wait said experiences in other states have shown once mallards start to use the hen houses, occupancy rates increase and stay high.
"After (hen houses) are put out and begin to be used, successive generations of ducks on a marsh readily use them," Wait said.
Although built with mallards in mind, scaup, mergansers and wood ducks have also been documented nesting in the structures, Wait said.
Delta Waterfowl has published instructions on its website for those who would like to build and erect a hen house.
"If it can help the ducks, I'm all for it," Bennett said. "I'm hoping we get hens moving into all these houses this year."
Kakatsch honored: The Mississippi Flyway Council last week presented Mark Kakatsch of Oconomowoc with its Waterfowl Heritage Award.
The award, developed by the council's Law Enforcement Committee, recognizes a citizen, a group of citizens or an organization for outstanding longterm support in the promotion of the sport of waterfowling, waterfowl law enforcement, waterfowl biology and waterfowl management benefiting the resource and the public.
Kakatsch, 52, has been active in Wisconsin waterfowl programs and issues for more than 30 years. He currently is chairman of the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation's migratory bird committee and formerly served on the Wisconsin Waterfowl Association board of directors.
Kakatsch has led dozens of programs in conjunction with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, including Wingshooting for Waterfowlers and a Learn to Waterfowl Hunt program at Horicon Marsh. He has also volunteered with Ducks Unlimited.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and its partners manage migratory birds based largely on routes the birds follow as they migrate between nesting and wintering areas.
Four administrative flyways (Atlantic, Mississippi, Central and Pacific) were established in North America to facilitate management of migratory birds and their habitats. Each flyway has a council, consisting of representatives from each state, provincial, and territorial agency within that flyway.
The Mississippi Flyway is made up of the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, and Wisconsin and the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario.