BIL been hearing a lot of volleys in Danville area
I copie sthis below from a group on Facebook I can’t find the original now but they were doing areal waterfowl counts
We got up for the aerial waterfowl survey of the Illinois and central Mississippi rivers on Monday, December 9th, 2024. After a couple of weeks of ice, we started to see some open water this week. Duck abundance remained above LTA along both the Illinois and Mississippi rivers this week. I estimated ~208,000 ducks in the IRV on Monday, a 23% drop from our last survey, but 7% above the 10-year average of ~195,000 ducks. Mallard abundance in the IRV, estimated at ~148,000, also remained above LTA this week (+12%). I estimated ~541,000 ducks on the central Mississippi river, a 15% decrease from last week but 4% above the 10-year average (~521,000). Mallard abundance (~252,000) remained relatively constant along the CMRV this week but fell 15% below the LTA.
Last week was hectic in the airplane, especially along the lower MS River as we observed a migration event during our peak combined with significant ice coverage concentrating birds. The partial thaw this week seems to have moved ducks around on the landscape, while simultaneously some birds are certainly moving on south. The theme of this week's survey was "birds in the air!" Indeed, my estimates on Pool 19 of the MS river and Goose Lake on the upper IL are likely conservative due to large flocks of birds moving around in the air. While boat traffic was the culprit on Pool 19, I'm still not sure what happened at Goose Lake. Regardless, it was a phenomenal sight watching waves of ducks moving to find open water.
This week's numbers and more info on the survey can be found at the link in our bio.
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