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 flew most of the waterfowl survey on Tuesday January 5th and finished up the last of the upper Illinois River on January 8th. Fog and low ceilings plagued us this week above Peoria. Most of the ducks are now gone except for a few mallards, common goldeneyes, and common mergansers. A raft of Canvasbacks […]
We waited until Wednesday of this week (December 2nd) to fly the waterfowl survey. The weather looked good so we decided to see what the cold snap would do to duck numbers. I feared most of the ducks would get out of here with the 20ºF low temps on Monday and Tuesday. Boy was I […]
We had a great day for the waterfowl survey on Tuesday, November 17th. The winds weren’t excessive, and we even had some cloud cover part of the day. I prefer to fly with some cloud cover because the direct sunshine and the sun’s reflection off the water aren’t blinding me on overcast days. I know […]