We got back in the air for the waterfowl flight on Thursday, November 13, 2025. We have had an increase in duck abundance since our last flight, especially diving ducks! Total duck abundance (384,076) was 5% greater than long-term averages in the Illinois River Valley, thanks largely to every duck not called mallard. Unfortunately, mallard […]
We got back in the air for the waterfowl flight on Thursday, October 23, 2025. We have picked up more early migrators and even had a small push of mallards, but still fell below long-term averages for duck abundance this week. While we did see a slight increase in water level on the Illinois, our […]
We got back in the air for the waterfowl flight on Tuesday, October 14, 2025. I don’t have good news for waterfowl hunters in the area. Water level in the Illinois River Valley is much lower than usual, and a few of the larger refuges in the Central MS River Valley don’t yet have water. […]
We got up in the air for the waterfowl flight on Friday, September 19, 2025. It was much of the same this week as the Illinois river level continued to drop, and many of the connected backwaters exposed more mudflats. Abundances continue to be lower than long-term averages across both rivers, though the difference is […]
Quick update from the survey last Thursday, September 11. The Illinois River continues to drop, but the freshly exposed mudflats won’t have time to grow new food before the end of the growing season. While this year’s trend in blue-winged teal migration seems to match that of previous years, abundance is quite lower. Blue-winged teal […]
We got up in the air for the first fall waterfowl flight of 2025 on Wednesday, August 27th. We’ll call this week zero since we’re about a week ahead of schedule, earlier than we typically start the flights. There was interest among the lab and our partners in seeing what abundances looked like during the […]
We got up for the aerial waterfowl survey of the Illinois and central Mississippi rivers on Wednesday, November 6th. Duck abundance was below the long-term average along both rivers this week, but especially low relative to LTA on the central MS River. I estimated ~298,000 ducks in the IRV on Friday, a 13% increase from […]
Wind and rain forced another late-week flight, but we managed the aerial waterfowl survey of the Illinois and central Mississippi rivers on Friday, November 1st. Duck abundance was on par with the long-term average in the Illinois River valley, but below LTA along the central MS River. I estimated ~263,310 ducks in the IRV on […]
We got back up in the air on Thursday, October 24th, for the aerial waterfowl survey of the Illinois and central Mississippi rivers. Unfortunately, fog kept us out of the lower Illinois River, and we finished that up on Friday, October 25th. We don’t like to split days on this survey, but sometimes it becomes […]
We got back up in the air on Tuesday, October 15th, for the aerial waterfowl survey of the Illinois and central Mississippi rivers. Overall, duck abundance was low on Tuesday across the survey area. Based on what we’ve been seeing while scouting for trapping over the course of this week, I suspect the recent windy […]