This year's survey data was done but still in raw form as of this writing. Allison Oberc, assistant migratory game-bird ecologist who gathers reports from the field biologists, said her impression from looking at the raw data was that nesting pairs were down from last year. The observers I spoke with all concurred that conditions were very dry this past spring, which is not the way you want to start a duck-nesting season.

Bruce Bacon and Chris Cold flew the northern half of the state May 9-12 with retired DNR pilot Larry Waskow, who returned as a limited-term employee to pilot the plane for the 18th year. Some of the federal pilots have flown the same transects for 30 years, Bacon said, which assures consistency in the routes.

"There were fewer temporary wetlands this year," Bacon said. "They are important as pairing ponds, and they provide invertebrates that help fatten up both drakes and hens. Marshes in some of the bigger complexes, like Crex Meadows, were also drier this year."

Bacon said there was plenty of snow in the north, but when it melted, it soaked into the ground, so some basins that would normally fill up did not do so. Even so, mallard numbers looked to be about average, he said.

"In a normal year, we'll see more migrants like goldeneyes and buffleheads, which nest farther north," Bacon said. "But this year we didn't see many of them."

DNR wildlife biologist Tom Bahti -- who has participated in the ground-truthing portion of the spring surveys in Manitowoc, Brown and Outagamie counties for the past 26 years -- said conditions were drier than normal this year in the northeast.

DNR wildlife technician Carrie Milestone, stationed at Sandhill Wildlife Area near Babcock, flew the southern route for the sixth year, with Waskow as pilot and Brian Glenzinski as her co-observer. She reported seeing fewer temporary wetlands, too.

"Duck numbers seemed about average," Milestone said. "We also saw more paired teal this year than last."

Van Horn reports that the prairie states -- the Dakotas and northern Minnesota -- were also dry this spring, but that conditions were a little better in the prairie provinces of Canada. He warned hunters not to put too much stock in western or northern ducks, however, because more than half of the harvest in Wisconsin is made up of ducks produced in our state or nearby. Local mallard numbers have doubled over the past 30 years, he points out, but blue-winged teal numbers have declined by about 60 percent over that same period.

Over the long term, total duck numbers have increased, led by mallards and wood ducks. Population estimates are most valuable when viewed over several years as an indicator of population trends rather than viewing them as exact measures of population on a year-to-year basis. The 2004 population estimate for total ducks was 651,493, which was 58 percent higher than the long-term mean and 22 percent higher than 2003. The mallard population estimate of 229,174 was 32 percent higher than the long-term mean and 12 percent lower than 2003. The survey caught blue-winged teal in migration, which means most of the birds counted were in large groups that were heading farther north. The estimate of 81 percent above the long-term mean and 137 percent above the 2003 estimate was not an accurate indication of local teal numbers. Wood ducks came in at 114,550, or 69 percent of the long-term mean and 4 percent above 2003.

DUCK NEST RESEARCH
DNR research biologist Ron Gatti conducts surveys designed to measure duck productivity and nesting success. Gatti is currently evaluating the comparative productivity of Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) land and public grasslands. This spring, his crew counted mallard and blue-winged teal nests on 2,200 acres in southeastern Columbia County on six public properties and 30 private parcels in CRP. Gatti said it appears CRP is more productive than public grasslands, but he needs another year of data before he can be sure.