Game and wildlife students at Reaseheath College in Nantwich have joined a project to build and install nesting tubes for mallard ducks.
The mallard, once the UK’s commonest wild duck, has seen its numbers drop over recent years and it is now on the Birds of Conservation Concern Amber list if concern for the species.
The main problems faced by the mallards are nest predation, habitat loss and climate change.
So Level 3 Diploma students at Reaseheath have stepped in to help by constructing tube shaped duck nests which are now installed on poles in the college’s lake, ready for the breeding season.
The project is in conjunction with the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC).
The safer design and siting lessens the chance of predation and disturbance.
Gavin Howe, BASC’s North West Regional Officer, spent a day on campus showing how the design can boost the ducks’ breeding success, how to construct the nests and where best to site them.
Students identified potential sites and installed nests they had built, with the work forming part of their course assessment.
Additional nests will be put up at other sites nearby.
Gavin said: “We build duck nest tubes to help boost the native population of mallard.
“Nest tubes offer security and protection from the elements and elevate nests off the ground.
“The success rates from ground nests can be quite low as mallard nests are often destroyed before the eggs have chance to hatch.
“This is for a number of reasons including predation, trampling from livestock and disturbance from dog walkers.
“These tubes have been shown in other countries to significantly boost fledgling success.
“This project is aimed at learning more about the breeding success of mallard in the hope we can boost the population. Now is the perfect time to put them up.”
The nest training day was part of an ongoing partnership between Reaseheath’s Countryside Department and BASC which gives students hands-on employability skills.
In January a student group joined BASC experts at WWT Martin Mere Wetland Centre in Lancashire.
Reaseheath Course Manager Alex Pendlebury said: “Our courses are aimed at producing the next generation of countryside mangers and conservationists.
“It’s important our students are industry-ready when they leave college.
“Learning from specialists such as those employed by BASC is an important part of this process and I’d like to thank BASC for supporting us with these two very relevant and enjoyable events.
“The nesting tubes are very eye catching and are a great way of engaging the general public in conversation.
“They provide an ideal opportunity for us to demonstrate the meaningful conservation work which gamekeepers and land managers carry out on a day to day basis.”
Game and Wildlife Management student Daniel Wellsbury-Ault said: “Building a tube shaped nest only took us 30 minutes once we’d learned how to do it. This might seem like a small step but it’s an important part of the big picture.
“If more people get involved, together we can make a really big difference to the success of the breeding mallard population.”
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