We got up in the air for the 3rd waterfowl survey of the Illinois and Mississippi rivers on Thursday, September 17th. We observed more of our early migrators this week as northern pintail, green-winged teal, and northern shoveler were more abundant. Unfortunately, however, duck abundances remain low in relation to 10-year averages along both rivers. Specifically, blue-winged teal abundance was 9% and 53% below long-term averages on the Illinois and Mississippi rivers, respectively. Though probably too little, too late, we did observe some germination and early vegetative growth in recently exposed mudflats along the Illinois river. Time isn’t on our side with these refuges, but hopefully we’ll see at least a little stunted growth and some seed production. Time will tell. Attached are a few photos of some differences in vegetation progression. I’ll let you decide which is the more ideal situation for our current time of the year!
