blue-winged teal | Forbes Biological Station | Illinois Natural History Survey

Week 4 – October 14, 2025

A duck blind in the middle of a body of water, which also features a body of land jutting out into the water.

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. Duck abundance is lower than long-term averages across both rivers. Because of the low water levels, our ducks, mostly green-winged teal and northern pintail, are congregated in freshly flooded moist-soil areas (and a few corn fields). As previously mentioned, total duck abundances were below their respective LTAs for the IRV (81,205) and CMRV (57,935) this week (coincidentally, both 32% below LTAs).

My takeaways from this flight are the low water levels and, seemingly, delayed migration. Blue wings are much more abundant in our region right now as compared to previous years (+112% for the IRV and +143% for the CMRV), while abundances of our other dabbling ducks are all below long-term averages. The old adage goes “if you don’t like the weather, just hang around a while…” I sure hope that is the case.

A favorite part of these early flights for both Mike and me is getting to see lots of different hunting setups. They’re as diverse as they are creative, and it’s always fun to see how folks adapt to their surroundings. Concealment is key, comfort is a luxury, and legality is, of course, important as well. Hunting in a big floating blind was a different beast for me when I moved here from the south. Most of my hunting had previously been standing next to a tree or lying in a small grass impoundment, waiting for ducks to circle overhead. So, even after 10 years, I’m still learning things about the big blinds. I often get asked what the thing is that sticks out most when we see blinds from above. It’s always movement and faces. Always.

So good luck to the hunters in these blinds, our north zone hunters, and central zone youth hunters this weekend! I hope I can include great hunting reports from them all next week! For more information on the survey and this week’s numbers, visit Aerial Inventories.

Aerial view of a flooded agricultural field with ducks in the water. — A mixture of dabbling ducks, mostly green-winged teal and northern pintail, in a flooded ag edge near the confluence of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers.

Aerial view of a large group of ducks in a lake. — A mixture of dabbling ducks, mostly green-winged teal and northern pintail, in a flooded ag edge near the confluence of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers.

First Aerial Inventory Flight of 2025 Season – August 27, 2025

aerial view of green fields with water in distance.

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 first few days of the teal migration, and we certainly did that. And you usually don’t need to twist my arm to get me into the survey plane, at least not during this time of year.

Much like 2024, summer drawdowns were effective along many of the Illinois and MS rivers’ backwaters. So far, the waterfowl food production looks above average for the 2025 fall flight in our region. As always, many hunters will depend on timely and reasonable rains over the course of the fall. There is more water on the landscape in the IRV as compared to last year, especially on the upper reach of the river. It’s a good thing these plants like their feet wet. Water is up and into the plants in many backwaters, but it looks like most of it has escaped being overtopped. We’re early yet, so I won’t make comparisons to a 10-year average that is a week ahead, but we did count a reasonable abundance of blue-winged teal, no doubt flying in with the recent cool weather we’ve experienced. I observed 9,890 and 1,160 blue-winged teal along the Illinois and central Mississippi rivers this week, and even saw a few pintail, green-winged teal, and shoveler. There are plenty of ducks in the area to get the blood pumping and get you excited enough to round up the hunting gear. Fall waterfowl migration 2025 is underway, and all is right in the world again!

This week’s numbers and additional information about our surveys are available on our Aerial Inventories page.

September 12th aerial survey

Those fickle blue-winged teal! They left us for the most part along the Illinois River. The remnants of Tropical Storm Gordon on September 7th and 8th increased water levels along the Illinois River. All that water coupled with the cool north winds and rain forced out our blue-winged teal on opening weekend of teal season. Similarly, recent rains across the upper Midwest have the central Mississippi River above flood stage or higher. Blue-winged teal numbers (7,715 ducks) this week were down 62% from the 10-yr average and decreased 60% from last week along the Illinois River. Blue-winged teal (8,565) on the central Mississippi River were up 95% from the 10-yr and 108% from last week; however, the majority of the teal were using the shallow waters of Swan Lake at Two Rivers NWR near the confluence of the Illinois and Mississippi rivers. Many of our refuges along the Illinois River held out the devastating flooding and the duck food plants were spared; but the Mississippi River was not so fortunate. Many of the refuges along the Mississippi lost their moist-soil plants from New Boston to Grafton and only the areas behind major levees remain intact.

Blue-winged teal (Spatula discors) prefer to feed on the sloppy mudded areas along our rivers and wetlands. Water more than a couple inches deep sends them packing for shallower foraging sites. This is why the recent rains have caused our picky bluewings to head further south. The cooler weather did bring in a few more of the early migrants like northern pintail, northern shoveler, and green-winged teal. See if you can identify them in the photo below. Good luck hunting out there!

Blue-winged teal pair in water. — Blue-winged teal in breeding plumage. Note the beautiful plumage of the males while adorning their nuptial plumage. During summer/autumn migration, the plumage of males resembles that of the cryptically colored females.

3 blue-winged teal taking flight. — Blue-winged teal in breeding plumage. Note the beautiful plumage of the males while adorning their nuptial plumage. During summer/autumn migration, the plumage of males resembles that of the cryptically colored females.

Stay tuned for more updates next week…