Two schools participate in waterfowl projects

The Mississippi Flyway chapter of Waterfowl USA has worked with the agricultural classes at two area high schools on conservation projects.

The projects were at Oregon and Riverdale.

At Oregon, the class is making artificial nests for wood ducks and mallards. The chapter provided the boards and hardware to make 20 wood duck houses and welded wire to make cylinders for mallard nesting.

The students learn power tool safety while they construct the nests under the direction of instructor Dan Hartman, who has experience providing such nests based on the ones used in the Prairie Pothole region of the upper Great Plains and south-western Canada.

At Riverdale, the classes are building floating nests from PVC tubing and plastic barrels that are used by Canada geese.