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 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 started the waterfowl survey on Tuesday the 8th, but the weather deteriorated quickly and we had to abandon the flight. We were successful in completing the entire flight on Thursday, December 10th. The ice we witnessed last week was all but gone, and the good news is we still have a few ducks around. […]
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 […]
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. […]