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Contributed by Patrick Lambe
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The Duck Decoymen of Friskney 

For those of you who don't know how a decoy works, it's a star shaped pond
with the points of the star curving around to be almost parallel with the
outside of the pond. The end of each point has a net trap over it to catch
the ducks that come into it.

Along each point of the star are a line of hurdles which effectively hide
the net (and hence the trapped ducks) from the main pond.
I'm not sure whether it's typical of all decoys, but the only one that I've
seen working had a sort of foxy coloured smallish dog which ran around the
hurdles going progressively further down the point of the star towards the
net, which had the effect of drawing the ducks into the nets.

I'm not sure whether it was just the duck's inquisitiveness with the dog
appearing and disappearing behind the hurdles causing them to follow it or
what but it seemed remarkably effective and certinly drew a number of ducks
in while I was there. Interestingly it apparently works better when the dog
looks somewhat fox-like...

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Added 26-August-2012