It’s a bit late, but I think it is important to post Aaron Yetter’s final blog of the season off the weekly aerial waterfowl survey for the Illinois Natural History Survey.
As you might guess, building ice truly impacted the survey and makes it the right time to stop for the season.
Click here for the listings of aerial surveys by the Illinois Natural History Survey. Keep up with research updates and aerial surveys at the Forbes Biological Station Facebook page.
Here is Yetter’s final blog of the season:
January 8, 2021 – Aerial Waterfowl Inventory Blog
We flew most of the waterfowl survey on Tuesday January 5th and finished up the last of the upper Illinois River on January 8th. Fog and low ceilings plagued us this week above Peoria. Most of the ducks are now gone except for a few mallards, common goldeneyes, and common mergansers. A raft of Canvasbacks is hanging on near Nauvoo, Illinois. I never did see the large numbers of Canvasbacks this fall on Pool 19. I think they may have overflown us during the Christmas Holiday. This was my last flight of the 2020 fall migration. We will start flying again in mid-February, or when the ice starts to break up.
Good Luck to the goose hunters and the southern duck hunters! For more information about the waterfowl survey, check out our webpage at www.bellrose.org.
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