Conservation Activities for those with Cabin Fever | Sports | swoknews.com – The Lawton Constitution

Spring is a wonderful time to be an outdoors person, but Spring also has brings times that make heading out to fish, hunt or hike not as much fun. Then throw in the confinement that many of us are feeling due to the Covid-19 virus, and you may be experiencing a little cabin fever. If thats the case, then here are a couple of activities that might help you get through, until the weather is a little better.

Put up a Martin house

Purple Martins are the only bird species in the eastern half of North America entirely dependent upon human-supplied nesting cavities for reproduction. It can be a challenge to establish a Purple Martin colony, but once a colony is established the tiny swooping acrobats will provide joy and insect relief for the new landlords.

If you are new to the purple martin game, then the suggestions below will help you succeed.

Educate yourself Learn everything you can about Purple Martins. Talk with other martin landlords and visit the web site (www.purplemartin.org) of the Purple Martin Conservation Association, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to aiding Purple Martins through landlord education and scientific research. Read the book: Enjoying Purple Martins More by Richard Wolinski and/or the Stokes Purple Martin Book, by Donald & Lillian Stokes.

If you want more information, then join the PMCA and receive the informative Purple Martin Update magazine.

Choose the right location Martins have very specific space requirements. One of the main reasons people fail to attract martins is that they place their martin housing incorrectly.

Martin housing should be in the center of the largest open spot available, about 30-120 feet from human housing. Place the housing where you can see it so you can enjoy watching and hearing the martins.

There should be no trees within 40 feet, preferably 60 feet, of the housing. In the southern half of their breeding range, martins are less fussy about house placement, so sometimes housing can be within 25 feet of trees and still attract martins. But the farther housing is placed from trees, the better. Housing height should be in the range of 10-17 feet. Dont attach wires to the house or pole, especially if they lead to trees, buildings, or the ground. Predators can use the wires to access the housing.

Put up manageable housing Your chances for success will be better if your housing is easy to manage. Choose a pole that telescopes, or is equipped with a winch or rope & pulley, and housing that has easy access to the compartments. Houses and gourds should be white, or a light color. White housing attracts martins best and reflects sunlight, keeping nestlings cooler.

Cavity floor dimensions should be at least 6 x 6, but larger cavities (7 x 12) are preferred by martins, and offer better protection from predators and rain. Unfortunately, larger compartments are also attractive to European Starlings, but a modification to the entrance hole will minimize starling problems. A round entrance hole of 2-1/8 is preferred by the martins, but they will use a range from 1-3/4 to 2-3/8. Make sure there is adequate ventilation and drainage in each nest cavity. Many houses can be improved if need be.

Add insulation to the attic, remodel interiors to offer double-size compartments, and add porch dividers to houses with shared porches. Dividers help keep males from claiming extra compartments, and can double occupancy rates. They also keep nestlings from wandering to other compartments where they can get lost and die, or steal food from younger nestlings, causing them to starve.

Open housing at the right time Adult martins are rarely attracted to new breeding sites they return to the sites where they bred previously. Typically, it is subadult martins (last years young) that colonize new sites, and they begin arriving about 4 weeks after the first adults in the northern third of the martins breeding range, 6 weeks after the adults in the middle of the range, and 8 weeks after the adults in the southern third. At uncolonized sites then, opening housing when the scouts are due decreases chances of attracting martins by giving

House Sparrows and starlings 4-8 weeks to claim the site before the subadult martins arrive.

To improve your chances, keep housing closed until its time for subadults to arrive (purplemartin.org offers migration-timing map for adult arrival).

At active sites, the first martins usually show up within a week or two of previous years arrival dates. The strategy at active colony sites is to have your housing ready, but keep it closed until some martins return. Martin migration is a drawn-out affair, with birds arriving for 8-12 weeks in the north, 16-20 weeks in the south. Martins can arrive and begin nesting up through the end of June, rangewide, so keep your housing ready; dont close it up, or let other birds use it.

Dont Close it Too Soon Dont close the entrances, or take the housing down, until late

August, as fledglings will be searching for next years breeding sites in late summer.

Increase Your Chances A few things can be done to make your site more attractive to Purple Martins. Offer a combination of houses and gourds. Play a dawnsong recording. Add a Purple Martin decoy or two. Place 1-2 of nesting material in the bottom of each compartment.

For information on the Purple Martin Conservation Association and receiving the quarterly Purple Martin Update magazine, visit the web site: http://www.purplemartin.org.

Build a Wood Duck Box While the weather has been hit or miss for fishing, turkey hunting or anything else outside. How about dusting off those saws, hammers and nails and building a nesting box for one of North Americas most beautiful sites, a pair of wood ducks, Aix sponsa, cruising a pond or flooded creek bottom.

Many consider the wood duck the most picturesque of waterfowl, with the incredible green and white iridescent plumage, orange eye and cackling muted squeal gave them away.

Maybe no other wildlife story is as successful as the return of the beautiful little duck. On the verge of extinct in the late 1800s, conservationists stepped in and limited hunting, but that didnt fix the decline.

Bottomland forests, critical feeding and nesting habitat for woodies, were disappearing and wood ducks, which utilize natural tree cavities for nest sites, didnt have suitable locations for nests. The wood duck population plummeted and wood ducks were considered rare in many parts of North America. By 1916, hunting of wood ducks was prohibited in 22 states and by 1918 wood duck hunting was closed nationwide with the passing of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The wood duck season remained closed for over 20 years (1918 1941).

In 1937, the U.S. Biological Survey (USFWS) tested the first wood duck boxes in Illinois. Wood ducks proved to be very adaptable, and over 50% of the boxes were used the first year. The success of those first 486 boxes prompted the expansion of wood duck boxes throughout North America. Nearly 75 years later, its estimated that wood duck boxes produce 100,000 150,000 additional wood ducks each year.

While you are waiting for the rain to stop, or your favorite fishing lake to return to some more normal levels, head to the wood shop and make a box or two. Its easy, fun and if you are lucky enough to get a family of woodies to move in, you have just helped to make sure this delightful duck has a place to bring up the next generation.

Waterfowl scientists with Delta Waterfowl recommend wooden boxes because they are less prone to extreme heat build-up that could endanger a hen or her eggs. This is especially important for folks in the southern U.S., where temperatures regularly exceed 90 F during the nesting season.

The cedar box, designed by Minnesota wood duck expert Don The Duckman Helmeke, has been found productive and safe for wood ducks throughout North America. You can use just about any type of wood to build your nest boxes, but cedar and cypress are more weather-resistant and will last longer. We also recommend installing a predator guard on each wood duck box post. Boxes are more beneficial to wood duck populations if they improve nest success over natural cavities. Cone-style predator guards are very effective at reducing mammalian predation, especially when you install your boxes on land.

Here are a few wood duck box basics when picking a location for your wood duck box(es). First, there must be adequate wetland habitat nearby for the hen and her ducklings. Though wood ducks may nest a mile or more from water, ducklings are more likely to survive if overland travel is minimized. Also make sure there are clear flight lines to the box opening and an easy path to the water. If youre installing multiple boxes, try not to install them within sight of another box.

Perhaps most important is selecting a site that can be easily accessed for annual maintenance. Annual maintenance (i.e., clean out and replace wood chips) is critical if you want to ensure your wood duck boxes are consistently productive. If boxes are hard to access, boxes often become neglected and use by wood ducks will decline. We recommend performing maintenance in late winter, just before wood ducks begin searching for nest sites. This date changes with latitude, as boxes in the southern U.S. should be maintained by late January. In northern states, the first wood ducks usually return around mid March.

Once you find the right location, a wood duck box can be mounted on a variety of surfaces including trees, posts, and the side of your house or barn. Though it seems natural to install them on trees, the safest location is on a wood or steel post with a cone-style predator guard.

Nest boxes can be installed on land or in water. On land, a shoreline installation is fine, but not necessary. Wood ducks have been known to use tree cavities and nest boxes up to a mile away from water. Land-based boxes can be monitored on a walk-up basis, do not require boats or waders, and eliminate worries about varying water levels and bending of poles from ice-out conditions in the north.

A hen wood duck usually lays one egg per day until her clutch is complete. The normal incubation period for a wood duck is usually 29 -30 days. Once some of the ducklings hatched- the entire brood will leave the following morning. This is called Jump Day and is one of the most interesting sites in the wild kingdom. Urged on by mother ducks calling the baby ducklings take the leap of faith and tumble to the water or ground below. After all of the ducklings are out, mom leads them to water, where they will spend the rest of their childhood.

Apply for a Controlled Hunt The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservations popular controlled hunts program is open to online applicants now.

The controlled hunts program offers once-in-a-lifetime elk and antelope hunts, highly sought-after buck hunts, and a range of other quality deer and turkey hunting opportunities through randomized drawings that only cost sportsmen $5 to enter. Opportunities offered through the program include hunts on Department or other government-owned or managed lands where unrestricted hunting would pose safety concerns or where overharvest might occur.

The online application process takes just a few minutes and must be completed through the Wildlife Departments website at wildlifedepartment.com. Applicants have until May 20 to submit their applications.

You just cant beat $5 for a chance at an Oklahoma big game or gobbler hunt in the unique areas offered through this program, said Wade Free, assistant director of operations for the Wildlife Department. Whether you want to hunt a bull elk in the Wichita Mountains, an antelope in the Panhandle or a trophy buck at locations across the state like the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant, the controlled hunts program is one of the best things going in Oklahoma hunting.

All applicants, including lifetime license holders, must pay the $5 application fee to enter the controlled hunts drawings. The fee is paid only once per person per year regardless of the number of categories entered.

Applications are offered online through a secure process that only accepts applications once they have been filed correctly, and a print-out confirmation page is available for sportsmen to document their submitted application.

Log on to http://www.wildlifedepartment.com and follow the Controlled Hunts link for complete application instructions, including tips on enhancing chances of being selected as well as a full listing of available hunts for elk, deer, antelope and turkey.

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Conservation Activities for those with Cabin Fever | Sports | swoknews.com - The Lawton Constitution