A Duck Infestation: What to do?

[Sergeant Gleed]

Here I am, living in the middle of an urban area, with four huskies, a concrete coated yard, a swimming pool, a fence to isolate the pool...

...and a mated pair of mallards landed in my pool last night and keep coming back.

The dogs thought it was great fun, when I let them into the pool area (where they always hang out) with a couple of quackers in the pool. Not one of them was quite willing to get wet, but the alpha-girl was testing the water with a paw.

Then the idiot male mallard decided to climb ashore and waddle over to the jacuzzi...it was really cute, but I had to run around the pool ahead of the huskies to chase the dumb bird back into the water.

They're going to get eaten.

Worse, if they don't get eaten...they were scoping out places in the back, where the 10 foot wide strip of palm trees and grass are, probably for a nesting site...if they lay the eggs, there's four weeks of roosting time, and then however many weeks it takes the ducklings to learn to fly and leave...to come back next spring again, I suppose...

Since I don't want a duck dinner, since I don't even know if it would be legal to catch them without a permit...

...how the heck do I convince the ducks to leave, for good, before a blue-eyed tragedy strikes the green-heads?

(Only one is a green-head, of course...)

[Lummy]

Try one of those air horns in a can.

[Sergeant Gleed]

Oh, I tossed one of the yellow duck floaters that hold the pool tablets at them. They were twenty feet in the air and on their way before the thing hit the water...and back three hours later.

There's a perfect lake just two miles away....lots of wild shoreline there....nope, they like my pool.


What's bothersome is that they paddled from one edge of the pool to another while ravening carnivores were patrolling around them seeking some way of getting to them without getting wet. I know they would have taken off like rockets (it's very impressive) if one of the huskies had jumped in, but they came back to a clearly hostile pool, one swarming with carnivores...

...they're not very smart.

[Sergeant Gleed]

20190504_061807_1557032970245.jpg

See? Ducks in the pool. I've a real problem...they don't want to leave.

[Lummy]

Get an RC battleship at HobbyTown. LOL.

They make synthetic birds of prey too. You can get one or two at a hardware store. Must work or they wouldn't sell them. Ones I've seen are owls.

[nathanbforrest45]

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/65147/roasted-duck/

When I lived in Jacksonville I lived on a large retention pond (about 10 acres). I would get ducks in there all the time. I had a Jack Russell who loved to chase them. They would let Molly get about 10 feet away from them and they would take to the air for about 100 feet, let Molly swim back to the 10 feet and then off again. I think the ducks were having as much fun being chased as Molly was chasing them.

Only once did she catch one, when a large flock of them came right up on my patio and my grandson opened the screen and out went Molly and there were too many ducks to all get in the air and one paid the price. I doubt if they will allow either dog to get very close to them before fleeing.

[Trish]

• Remove the giblets from inside the duck. Rinse the duck, inside and outside, with cold water. Pat dry with paper towels.
  
• Set the duck on the working surface. Score the duck's skin on the breast in a diamond pattern, making sure you only cut the skin, without reaching the meat. Poke the other fatty parts of the duck with the tip of the knife all over, to ensure fat release, especially in very fatty parts. You don’t need to poke the duck legs as the skin is pretty thin there (except for where the duck legs connect to the duck body). Season the duck very generously with salt both inside the cavity of the duck and outside on the skin, legs, all over. Place the duck breast side up.
  
• Put 5 chopped garlic cloves and lemon slices inside the duck cavity (these are just for flavor, not for eating - you will discard them after cooking). The duck will have flapping skin on both ends - fold that skin inwards, to hold the garlic and lemon inside. Tie up the duck legs with butcher's twine.

Roast the duck for 3 hours in 4 distinctive steps:

• Place the bird breast side up on a large roasting pan with a rack (roasting pan should have a roasting rack to lift the duck from the bottom of the pan and allow the fat to drip below the duck). Roast the duck, breast side up, for 1 hour at 350 F.
  
• After 1 hour of roasting, flip the duck on its breast and roast it breast side down (roast the other side) for 40 minutes, at 350 F.
  
• Remove the roasting pan with the duck from the oven (you now have roasted the duck for 1 hour + 40 minutes), carefully remove the duck to a platter (making sure the lemons and garlic from the cavity do not fall out - keep the skin on both ends of the duck folded), and carefully pour off all the duck fat juices from the roasting pan into a large heat-proof bowl or container.
  
• Flip the duck breast side up again on a rack in a roasting pan (the pan will have no fat juices now). In a small bowl, combine 1/2 cup of balsamic vinegar with the freshly squeezed juice of 1 lemon. Brush all of the duck with the balsamic mixture (especially the scored duck breast) and cook the duck breast side up for another 40 minutes at 350 F, brushing every 10 minutes with the mixture.
  
• Now, in a separate small bowl, combine 1/4 cup honey and 3 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar lemon mixture that you will have left over from the previous step. Brush the breast side of the duck with this honey-balsamic mixture, and roast for another 40 minutes, brushing the duck breast side every 10 minutes with honey balsamic mixture. You can even carefully broil the duck for the last 10-15 minutes if you like (do it carefully, checking the duck regularly to make sure it doesn't char too much).
  
• After the duck is cooked, remove it from the oven, let duck stand for 15 minutes. Then, carefully remove and discard the lemon from the cavity (being careful not to get burned). Carve the duck and serve!
  
• TOTAL COOKING TIME: The duck should be roasted for a total of 3 hours at 350 F. These 3 hours of roasting are divided into 4 distinctive time chunks (1 hour breast side up + 40 minutes breast side down + 40 minutes breast side up brushed with balsamic-lemon mixture + 40 minutes breast side up brushed with honey-balsamic mixture).
  

[Peter1469]

Call the county wildlife officials. They can probably catch them and resettle them and their nest.

[nathanbforrest45]

Call the county wildlife officials. They can probably catch them and resettle them and their nest.

Either that or you will see duck on the menu the next night!

[countryboy]

Here I am, living in the middle of an urban area, with four huskies, a concrete coated yard, a swimming pool, a fence to isolate the pool...

...and a mated pair of mallards landed in my pool last night and keep coming back.

The dogs thought it was great fun, when I let them into the pool area (where they always hang out) with a couple of quackers in the pool. Not one of them was quite willing to get wet, but the alpha-girl was testing the water with a paw.

Then the idiot male mallard decided to climb ashore and waddle over to the jacuzzi...it was really cute, but I had to run around the pool ahead of the huskies to chase the dumb bird back into the water.

They're going to get eaten.

Worse, if they don't get eaten...they were scoping out places in the back, where the 10 foot wide strip of palm trees and grass are, probably for a nesting site...if they lay the eggs, there's four weeks of roosting time, and then however many weeks it takes the ducklings to learn to fly and leave...to come back next spring again, I suppose...

Since I don't want a duck dinner, since I don't even know if it would be legal to catch them without a permit...

...how the heck do I convince the ducks to leave, for good, before a blue-eyed tragedy strikes the green-heads?

(Only one is a green-head, of course...)

Bottle rockets.