Iced up: Short & sweet year-end blog on aerial waterfowl surveys by Aaron Yetter

By Dale Bowman

Credit: Courtesy of Illinois Natural History Survey/Aaron Yetter

Aaron Yetter mentioned it was 3 degrees when they flew the aerial survey on Tuesday. That shows in the numbers or, rather, the lack of duck numbers along the Illinois and Mississippi rivers.

Click herefor much information about the aerial surveys and, more importantly, about the Stephen A. Forbes Biological Station, located along the Illinois River on Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge near Havana. Established in 1894, “it is the oldest inland field station in North America and one of nine field stations of the Illinois Natural History Survey. The Frank C. Bellrose Waterfowl Research Center is housed at the Forbes Biological Station.”

Photo above is of mallards packed on a piece of open water.

Here is Yetter’s blog from the survey on Tuesday:

December 27, 2017 – Aerial Waterfowl Survey Blog We flew the waterfowl survey on December 26th 2017 and the air temperature was 3 degrees. Almost everything was iced up, and when we found ducks, they were tightly packed into a little bit of open water. I have included a couple of photos to illustrate my point. Duck numbers were down considerably along both rivers, but a few of those die hard mallards and canvasbacks were holding on. For those of you still hunting ducks out there; be careful, it’s COLD! Thanks for following my blog……..Aaron

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