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WATERFOWL BREEDING GROUND SURVEY IN NEW HAMPSHIRE, 1949 - 1950 
Tudor Richards 
The waterfowl breeding ground survey is a part of a year-round waterfowl 
population survey now being carried on by the New Hampshire Fish and Game Depart- 
ment ds a Federal Aid study. Information obtained in this survey is for the use of the 
State Fish and Game Department and the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service in making 
management plans, especially hunting regulations, It also will provide the basis of a 
report to be written in popular style for the benefit of sportsmen and other wildlife 
enthusiasts interested in the waterfowl of New Hampshire. 
This waterfowl population survey succeeds the waterfowl habitat improvement 
survey, carried on in the years 1945-1948 inclusive, as the mainstay of PR Project 7-R. 
The habitat survey consisted of making an inventory of all the waterways of the State 
to determine their suitability or potential suitability for waterfowl either as breeding 
grounds or resting spots during the migrations. Some of the information obtained is 
already being used in the management of waterfowl habitat. Notes were made in the 
course of the habitat survey on all waterfowl observed, but upon the completion of the 
field work it became evident that more accurate information on the status of the many 
species of waterfowl that occur in New Hampshire either as migrants or residents was 
desirable. Accordingly, the waterfowl population survey was organized in the spring 
of 1949 and the breeding ground survey as a major part of it the following summer. 
In this first summer, one man spent most of June and July and a little of 
August and September in the field locating duck broods in the majority of the more 
important waterfowl nesting areas and representative lesser ones in each of nine 
divisions of the State that have been recognized in.the population survey. A consider- 
able number of brood records were contributed by other members of the Fish and 
Game Department and a few by outside cooperators. <A brief report summarizing the 
results of this survey was submitted as the Quarterly Progress Report of project 7-R-5 
in October 1949. 
In 1950 the breeding ground survey was continued. As in the previous year, 
the writer did the major share of the field work, which was carried on intensively on 
a nearly full-time basis in June, July, and August. Over 100 different waterways were 
visited, including most of those surveyed in 1949, as well as numerous new ones. 
Hilbert Siegler, Fish and Game Biologist, on several occasions helped cover 
some of the larger areas, as well as a good many lesser areas. Conservation Officer, 
Fred Scott, covered the more important areas in his Pittsburg territory for the second 
straight year. Other members of the Fish and Game Department, Mrs. Clinton Wallace 
in New Hampton, Mr. Kimball Elkins in Andover and Salisbury, Mrs. Ralph Brainard in 
Walpole, Mr. and Mrs. Bradley Baker in Concord, and students of the University of 
New Hampshire, under Professor C. F. Jackson, are other contributors to this study. 
Methods used in the 1950 survey were very similar to those of the previous 
year. Emphasis was placed on the location of broods rather than on breeding pairs or 
nests. Representative water bodies were selected for sampling, and most of these 
were visited but once in order that“as many areas as possible be surveyed. It seemed 
desirable not only to resurvey the areas visited the previous years, to determine 
possible trends, but to investigate new areas as to their productivity and suitability as 
representative types of habitat to sample. The better, larger types of breeding grounds 
are not typical, nor are there enough of them to provide sufficient volume of statistics 
