Chris Jennings, Mallori Murphey, and Dr. Scott Stephens join Dr. Mike Brasher to discuss the current status of teal migration, habitat conditions, and how you can stay informed during the hunting season. Through DU’s Migration Alerts, hunters will be “in the know” about bird numbers, weather systems, hunting success, and habitat conditions. Waterfowl 360 is here with a plethora of hunting resources, including decoy tactics, recipes, waterfowl ID, hunting stories, and more. Lastly, Dr. Scott Stephens shares the latest from Prairie Canada and his first week of the new season. Spoiler alert…it’s dry again, but skinny teal decoys once again proved their worth!
“Life is Short. You Better Hunt.”
www.ducks.org/migration
www.waterfowl360.com
www.ducks.org/DUPodcast
“Life is Short. You Better Hunt.”
www.ducks.org/migration
www.waterfowl360.com
www.ducks.org/DUPodcast
Creators & Guests
What is Ducks Unlimited Podcast?
Ducks Unlimited Podcast is a constant discussion of all things waterfowl; from in-depth hunting tips and tactics, to waterfowl biology, research, science, and habitat updates. The DU Podcast is the go-to resource for waterfowl hunters and conservationists. Ducks Unlimited is the world's leader in wetlands conservation.
Mike Brasher: Oh, are we recording? We're good? Radio? Okay. Everybody, welcome back. I am your host on this episode, Dr. Mike Brasher, and I am thrilled to have in studio with me my co-host, Chris Jennings. Chris, how are you?
Chris Jennings: I'm doing well, Mike. Thank you.
Mike Brasher: I like your turquoise shirt that you got on there, fishing shirt, you know. Hey. It's a nice look. And to my left is a repeat guest on the podcast. You were on once, at least once before. Mallory Murphy, our social media manager and our digital content editor for social and web. Mallory, it is great to have you on as well.
Mallori Murphy: It's great to be here.
Mike Brasher: So, we're recording this, yeah, Friday the 13th of September. So, hopefully we won't have anything go wrong on this, any scary happenings occur. We're going to have an episode today where we talk about some of the resources that Ducks Unlimited makes available to our hunters. Things like our migration alerts, our migration maps, some of the resources on our web under our Waterfowl 360 page. I know a lot of you will be aware of those and familiar with those and probably contribute some to the migration map reports. We thank you for that. But we wanted to take this opportunity to share some insights on a few migration alerts that have gone out early already this year. But for those of you that may not be aware of any of these resources, you will after you listen to this episode. So Chris, I think that's where we're gonna start. Migration alert, the migration alert program, It's a pretty popular aspect of some of the resources we provide to hunters, right?
Chris Jennings: Yeah, absolutely. And I guess the best way to look at this is it's really one of the only real-time, almost hard news type content that Ducks Unlimited produces. These are designed, the Migration Alert Program is designed to keep hunters abreast of the migration habitat conditions throughout the season, starting first week in September, all the way through the light goose conservation order into April. These are sponsored monthly by various different companies throughout the outdoor industry. And the way they're set up, they're set up by Flyway. We do about 70 to 75 of these.
Mike Brasher: That's amazing. I didn't realize it was that many. It's a lot, yeah.
Chris Jennings: And we have some staff who do them. I do a handful of them. And just to kind of step back, it's one of my favorite programs because one of my favorite programs we work on, it's still kind of one of the only legacy digital programs that I'm still involved with. But it's just awesome to keep pace with the waterfowl migration throughout the season. Since we're getting these from all over the country or all over the US and Canada, it's really cool to hear what's going on in Alberta on September 20th. upstate New York by mid to late October. I hire professional freelance riders to do these, not necessarily by a flyway, but typically by region. We have won some states that have more waterfowl hunters and a little bit more interest in these. We've increased… We have one dedicated Texas Migration Alert freelance contributor.
Mike Brasher: Now, does that mean dedicated in terms of their spirit and their passion for it? No.
Chris Jennings: Dedicated just to Texas. Oh, just to Texas. Okay. And along with that, our Central Flyway migration contributor, John Pollmann, who's been a regular guest. Regular guest on the podcast. He also does some alerts from North Texas. So, he does pretty much the whole entire… How does he do that? Because he lives in South Dakota.
Mike Brasher: Yeah, it makes a lot of phone calls.
Chris Jennings: You know, the idea behind these is you can go to another program that we're going to talk about here in a little bit, the migration map, and you can get kind of updated reports from the general public. But a lot of times that's, you know, Billy Bob saying that he saw three Canada geese swimming in the park. What the migration alerts provide is that scientific credibility. So, this information is coming from someone like Dr. Scott Stevens, who kind of has a real pulse of the migration and the habitat throughout the Canadian prairie.
Mike Brasher: He doesn't necessarily write them, but he's one of the people that John or others would contact, or Jay Anglin would contact some of our biologists and other folks to get that information.
Chris Jennings: Absolutely. And that, you know, so they're making the phone calls. They're calling probably a lot of your old buddies, you know, everyone from you know, Heath Hagee to, you know, D.U. Canna, Pat Kehoe and Ducks Unlimited Canada is providing this information.
Mike Brasher: A few outfitters I see. Outfitters, you know, sometimes some regular hunters.
Chris Jennings: They're out there doing it every day. Absolutely. I mean, they're not, this is not information that's coming from, you know, Joe Schmoe over here. It's coming from someone who is paying attention to this for various reasons, whether it's a waterfowl manager, state agency biologist, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist. This is the information that hunters want to know. And I think that's what's made this program so successful over the years. We've done videos with them. They're not wildly popular as much as even the… And even a few years ago, well, maybe more than that, we had some budget cuts and we had to back off of these. And so, we went from probably 70 to 80 and backed it down to like 45 or 50 throughout the entire waterfowl season. Well, we thought, eh, no big deal. It's not gonna make that much. Man, we got so many emails. People noticed it? Oh, man. We got emails from like, California State Chairman at the time was like, man, I've only seen two in California. No way. And we have a dedicated contributor just for California, and he covers north, south, and of course Central Valley. We have a dedicated, I'll go through where they are, but you know, a dedicated contributor in the Pacific Northwest. We've got one in the North Atlantic now. We've got the Great Lakes region, which is covered by a friend of the podcast, Jay Anglin, which he provides a lot of information in his… He's got a good personality too, doesn't he?
Mike Brasher: He adds some flavor to
Chris Jennings: Yeah, I mean, it can get colorful, that's for sure.
Mike Brasher: That's what I want to know, is like, your conversations with Jay are probably different than what ends up on paper, right? Oh, absolutely. But actually, he writes them, though. He writes them. He's writing them. Yeah, absolutely. He's writing them. So, his conversations with the people he calls are probably different than what he puts on paper, unfortunately. Yeah. Because, you know, those conversations are probably much more entertaining.
Mallori Murphy: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Chris cuts some of his words in these alerts. His personality doesn't get to shine as much, which that happens with mine too. My migration alert, I think, I don't know, I think you just cut out a few of mine.
Chris Jennings: A couple. A couple things here and there get chopped.
Mallori Murphy: You know, we don't get to tell the whole story. Chris just wants, you know, be brief, be gone.
Chris Jennings: Yep, and that's what it is. I mean, this is something that's delivered by email. You can subscribe. If you go to ducks.org forward slash migration, it'll take you straight to the migration alerts page. You can subscribe there. You can subscribe to all Flyways or you can subscribe to just your Flyway. You can also subscribe to them by text.
Mike Brasher: Okay, well that's what I was going to ask you. When you say subscribe, what does that mean? How do you get notified of those alerts?
Chris Jennings: So, when we do them, so like just like last week we did three. We did two in the Central Flyway and one in the Mississippi Flyway. Obviously, there's no early teal season. in the Pacific Flyway. Atlantic, that's coming. We got a preview coming out. But, you know, when we do these, we submit them. Once you subscribe, you're added to this list. So as soon as we upload that to the website, you immediately get an email saying, hey, this has been uploaded to the website. Um, and so you just in passing and these are quick reads. There are 450 to 600 words. Uh, Mallory throws in some colorful images and, uh, you know, it, it's just something to provide you that touch point, that update on the migration, even if you're not in. So last week we did central flyway, uh, preview, which was from North Dakota all the way down to, uh, Oklahoma. Um, and then we did a dedicated Texas alert and then, uh, Jay England provided a great lakes roundup that just kind of discussed, um. you know, where the migration was, what some local hunters, some waterfowl managers were seeing.
Mike Brasher: And we're mostly talking about the early teal season right now. That's all early teal. Okay. Yep.
Chris Jennings: And we'll get into, as the, as the season progresses, if you're subscribed to these lists, you see these kind of transition throughout the waterfowl season. So, you know, starting even next week and the following week, you know, you're going to start seeing northern Minnesota because their duck seasons are going to North Dakota.
Mike Brasher: I think South Dakota. I think Stevens was telling me South Dakota.
Chris Jennings: South Dakota will open. You know, obviously Canada will sprinkle in some. Yeah. A Saskatchewan alert, an Alberta alert, Manitoba. And people can get an idea and by subscribing to these, even though let's say you live in Louisiana, if you're subscribed to the Mississippi Flyway and the Central Flyway, you're gonna catch, you know, that Saskatchewan update as well. What's going on up north? That's what duck hunters are asking all over the country right now. How's it looking up there? And there's a few people, there's people up there hunting already. But to get that verified, credible information through these alerts, that's the entire goal of the Migration Alert Program. It's just to keep hunters in line. Now, this was several years ago. probably upwards of five or six, we had, so basically, unique page views that we were monitoring. We had close to 750,000 unique page views just within this program. And the reason why that's significant, I bring it up all the time. Now, when it says unique, that could mean I open it on my laptop and my phone. That would be two. But, you know, with 750,000 unique page views on these, there's not really that many more duck hunters in the country.
Mallori Murphy: So we're hitting all of them.
Chris Jennings: Yeah, I mean that's pretty impressive.
Mallori Murphy: Was it an average 1.1 million, right at 1 million waterfowl hunters from this most recent report?
Mike Brasher: Yeah, something.
Mallori Murphy: That's for another podcast. Somewhere between 900,000 and 1.1, 1.2 million waterfowl hunters.
Mike Brasher: Yeah, waterfowl hunters total, you're looking at over a million because you capture goose hunters in there as well that don't necessarily duck. So, yeah, it's gonna be a bit over a million.
Chris Jennings: Yeah, so, I mean, we were kind of waving that flag like, hey man, like just this one small program that we're doing and we saw the response to the information that we were providing and it's like, hey, we're hitting almost every single waterfowl hunter out there. So, and what a lot of people do and I get them from my buddy sometimes too is They'll get it, you get the email, read it, then forward that email to one of their buddies. Hey, check this out, you know, stuff like that. And then of course, as Mallory is well aware of, each of these alerts gets placed on Instagram.
Mike Brasher: Oftentimes in the stories component of Instagram, right?
Chris Jennings: On the Instagram, it's on the stories.
Mallori Murphy: If it's like a big preview, put it in the post, say, you know, go to Lincoln Bio, those will probably start coming out soon. Yeah. Okay. And yeah, you can, migration alerts are anywhere, whether you'll see them as soon as we get them on our social, you can get it via text. You can also get it in your email. Yeah.
Chris Jennings: And they're, they're spread throughout the entire, all encompassing. You know, digital reach of ducks, unlimited newsletters, you'll see him there. Um, and even, you know, we kind of piggyback off of these throughout the season with the podcast, you know, um, I'm sure, you know, people would just kind of walking in thinking that, um, I am the, you know, all. knowing person in these flyways when we did those migration alerts the last couple years because I'm able to just… People think that about you.
Mike Brasher: No. I missed that.
Chris Jennings: I never caught that. All knowing. But it really is just because I get all these alerts and so I get to… You're always in the know. I'm following along with every single one of them pretty closely. Um, and so I can get on these podcasts and provide a pretty, pretty credible update on what's going on, even if it's the Pacific Northwest that I've never even hunted out there. But, you know, I talked to the guy, the freelance contributors out there enough to know whether the hunting's good or the hunting's bad or where's the migration at. So.
Mike Brasher: Speaking of updates, I want to get you to talk briefly about the three alerts that went out last week, just kind of high level. No details or anything, just like generally what you were hearing for those three different regions. And then I know you may have to get out of here and then we'll continue on with Mallory on one of the other components here. I do want to encourage people to stick around to the very end of this episode. We're going to try to get Dr. Scott Stevens, who is actually here at National Headquarters, to come in and join us. We're going to piece together another little update from him from Prairie, Canada. So yeah, just stay tuned for that. But yeah, the migration alerts that went out over the past week from a teal migration habitat condition standpoint up and down those flyways, what did you learn?
Chris Jennings: Um, you know, there's still some dry areas, especially central flyway, um, kind of the lower planes area. You got, you know, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, they, they're still fairly dry. Um, I did hear of a couple of guys in Oklahoma having some pretty decent shoots, um, where they had water. Texas, and that alert that we did last week was really kind of targeted at the Texas coast. Our freelancer down there, Bing Grimes, does a great job. He's headquartered down there on the coast, so that's kind of where his specialty is. But if you really think about it between the coast and then some of the agricultural areas along the Texas prairie down there, That's the bulk. They're sitting pretty right now.
Mike Brasher: Yeah. I mean, that's the bulk of where the 100 came from. I read that alert. That was something, man.
Chris Jennings: Yeah, they've had a bunch of rain.
Mike Brasher: 40 to 50 inches of rain or something like that thus far this year?
Chris Jennings: That is what we refer to as an abundance of rain. But, you know, even the guys who are in the ag fields, they're, they're in great shape, but it's the, you know, kind of the public land, the marsh, the coastal marsh there, they were really dry last year and even the year before. Um, I think, you know, a quote in that article said he could ride a 10 speed bicycle through the marsh. Uh, one of the outfitters said that and he's this year it is. full, lush, green aquatic vegetation, tons of duck food out there. Those guys who have lived down there and they know what these ducks are looking for, they seem to be really fired up. So the optimism is certainly there. And that'll carry them into the regular waterfowl season. I mean, that's the hope. As far as the Great Lakes goes, there's some good areas up there. There's been some bad. I think Michigan and Wisconsin appeared to have pretty strong habitat. Even talking to Anglin offline, he mentioned he had seen a ton of teal broods in the Great Lakes region. So, and had some guys calling and reporting about that. So, you know, I'm sure some guys did pretty well. I heard Western Minnesota did really well. They had their, I think it's like a five-day, maybe six-day deal that they, teal season, an early teal season that they had.
Mike Brasher: Still sort of an experimental thing for them, right? It is. Because they're one of the, quote, production states. There's been some restrictions on the early teal season for a number of years, but they're sort of part of an
Chris Jennings: Yeah, they were doing a three year, um, experiment and they extended it by one year. Um, so, you know, maybe that'll get extended again. I don't know. I can't really speak to that. I'm not engaged in that at all, but, you know, overall it seemed like, you know, a lot of guys who had water, especially in the great lakes region, upper great lakes region, they had some teal. Um, so that was good going further South states like Indiana. Um, they don't even open up until the 14th. So. Uh, which is a little bit different for Indiana. Like I grew up there, you know, we were hunting teal typically that first weekend in September, but, um, you know, they, they, they've kind of pushed that back. I'm not sure why I'm sure Jay, uh, will probably be shooting some teal this weekend. He seems to be pretty optimistic about it. Um, and then the one thing to mention, we, you know, every single year we've done this, we've always had a Louisiana alert. And, you know, reaching out and trying to get a hold of the Louisiana waterfowl program coordinator. Jason Olsak. Yep. He was unavailable, which makes sense. You know, they had the big storm come through there, hoping that they were able to get up and, you know, get a survey done. They typically do Southeast, Southwest surveys, and then they do the Northern part of Louisiana as well. But those are really a pretty good indicator of where the migration is as far as numbers in South Louisiana.
Mike Brasher: I remember you talked to me early, I guess earlier this week, I think it was early this week, asking me my thoughts on whether they would fly the survey in Louisiana. And it was, this was like two days before Francis, Francine was going to make landfall. And I said, nah, they're, they're focused on other things right now. I've been down there. I know the routine they go through. So you were not able to make contact with anybody with regard to the, what we think their schedule may be on that.
Chris Jennings: No, our freelancer down there Chris Holmes. He's done. He also contributes to like Louisiana sportsmen different publications like that He's pretty well known in that area now. He's based in southeast, Louisiana And he he just you know, and I think him like everyone else like you mentioned they're doing stuff It wasn't it wasn't time to start worrying about teal and they had the potential of a pretty significant storm down there. So I We're hoping to get a better estimate maybe next week later. Well, I guess if this is recorded, it would be this week. I'm hoping to have at least an update on the habitat conditions. I'm sure, and I guarantee it, there's probably some Louisiana teal hunters who are preparing to hunt tomorrow morning.
Mike Brasher: Well, especially southwestern Louisiana. I think they were on the west side of the storm, and so they probably missed out on even a lot of that rain that came in, they would have obviously gotten some of the wind on the backside of that, but nothing as powerful as on the east.
Chris Jennings: There was some conversation about, you know, maybe some of those Blue Wings getting blown back north a little bit. Yeah.
Mallori Murphy: I unfortunately invited Mike on a tail hunt. Unfortunately. There's no birds.
Chris Jennings: We thought it would blow up here. Unfortunately, I invited Mike. I've made that unfortunate mistake before, inviting Mike on something.
Mike Brasher: The unfortunate part would be that the birds didn't show up, not that I was invited. Okay, let's get that clear.
Chris Jennings: Sounded better. But yeah, so hopefully we'll get that in next week and then we're just going to be rolling through the whole season. So, you know, people should visit ducks.org forward slash migration. Check out the migration alert, subscribe via text, via email. They're also posted on the map with a little bit different color icon. So if you can find it in the app or on the map, you can kind of stay in tune with that updated information.
Mallori Murphy: No matter where you look, you should be able to find a migration alert somewhere.
Mike Brasher: I need to go subscribe for the email version of that. I have subscribed for the text version, but I don't think I am on email. I'm going to get in trouble for that, but I'm going to take care of that. But I'll have to subscribe for all four flyways. And I have to do that separately, right? You can check the boxes. It's a box check there.
Chris Jennings: But yeah, no, I appreciate it and hope everybody gets out there and checks it out. Are you going to stick around or you got to head out? I'm going to bounce out. I'll leave it to Mallory to talk about Waterfowl 360 and the exciting stuff that goes on there. And it's going to be a great fall.
Mike Brasher: I'm excited about it, man. I've spent way too much time in the office this spring and summer. I am super excited to get out in the field, chase all sorts of critters.
Chris Jennings: See, I've not been excited yet. Been still kind of been drug down by the summer blues, is what I would refer to it.
Mike Brasher: Man, we're still in the summer, absolutely. Got a new gun I'm gonna put to use. Ooh, nice. I did get the 28 gauge over under.
Chris Jennings: See, I booked my trip, a magazine assignment for North Dakota in late October, and I booked that today. Booked my flight, and that was the first time I kind of got that little Flutter of like, oh gosh, it's gonna be duck season.
Mallori Murphy: Oh, here we go Yeah, I got that flutter when you told me that you see me that email that day saying here's our first alert I was like, yeah, I think that I think that's when I started getting excited. Yep.
Chris Jennings: It's my workload Did you get excited you're like, oh god, here we go again.
Mike Brasher: Oh
Mallori Murphy: You know, it's the start of a new program. I mean, this is a very important program for our department and obviously our membership and all of the Waterfowl and community. They always want to be in the know, so I try to have everything as perfect as possible. I want all the emails to go out. I want everyone to get their text messages. I want the page to look good. Make sure the information's right. It's very nerve-wracking.
Mike Brasher: Chris, I'm going to let you get out of here. Thank you very much for everything that you do for the Migration Alerts and bringing great information to the waterfowl hunters. Thanks for having me on. All right, man. Yeah, so at this time, I think we'll just take a quick break. And whenever we come back, we're going to talk with Mallory Murphy about Waterfowl 360. So stay with us, folks. Welcome back everyone to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. We are continuing our discussion about all the resources that we bring to waterfowl hunters this time of year. We have now a focus on Waterfowl 360, the ultimate resource for waterfowl hunting, a feature on the Ducks Unlimited website, and to help us with that is Mallory Murphy. Mallory, how are you doing? I'm doing I'm good. So tell us about Waterfowl360. You're sort of the, you don't produce all the information. The information that's on here comes from a lot of different places, but you're sort of the curator of this, the one that makes sure it looks great. The information is there. So tell people where they can find this and what it is.
Mallori Murphy: So, Waterfowl360 is Long story short, a rebrand of our entire hunting section. So, um, obviously September through the end of January, peak waterfowl season, which is the waterfowl season, we rebrand our entire hunting section to Waterfowl 360. And we are constantly putting so much information every single day on our hunting section of our website to keep all of our waterfowlers informed on everything waterfowl.
Mike Brasher: So if somebody wants to go find it, what do they do?
Mallori Murphy: They can go to www.waterfowl360.com and they will have all the information they need from if you're a novice hunter to an expert, want some recipes, want to see our migration map, want to see migration alerts. Need to practice your calling tips, which I probably need to read some of those articles going into the season. Haven't picked up my duck call this year.
Mike Brasher: I think we probably all fall, many of us fall into that category. I know I did.
Mallori Murphy: Yeah. From decoy strategies to everything, retriever training, we'll post videos, podcast episodes, anything and everything that we think the information that a waterfowler will need, we offer it to them, Waterfowl 360.
Mike Brasher: One of the other ways you can get to it if you go to ducks.org and then click on the waterfowl, I'm sorry, click on the hunting menu up at the top and hunting home. That's what this is, right?
Mallori Murphy: That's what this is. Our entire hunting section gets rebranded as Waterfowl 360 and we're constantly pushing you to this section because we need you to know everything you need to know.
Mike Brasher: So, we have on here, you'll see these different circles if you navigate to that page, migration alerts, the migration map. We, of course, talked about migration alerts with Jennings here just a few minutes ago. If you click on that, it shows you how to subscribe. It takes you to those recent alerts that he put out. The migration map, that's also something that anyone can participate in, can go and submit reports. Anything to say about that?
Mallori Murphy: Yeah, you go in and submit your reports.
Mike Brasher: You have to register, you have to get an account or something of that nature. How does that work? I think you probably do, right?
Mallori Murphy: I believe you do. Yeah, because it shows up. It shows up your name and your location. You can go in and tell us what you're seeing, the habitat conditions, what the weather's like that day. You know, tell us where you're at, tell us what you're doing. At a minimum, you know, we don't need to know everything exactly what you're doing out there, but just let us know what you're seeing in your area. We sort of pull some of our migration alerts, like if we're getting a lot of hits in one area, you know, Chris might call up one of his guys and be like, hey, let's kind of maybe pivot. We're not getting what we want. one other area. Seems like there's a lot of local activity going on over there. Call, see what's going on. Might produce a migration alert out of it. And you might also get a call saying, hey, do you want to contribute to this migration alert? Recognize that name. This seems like a credible source. You know, maybe we should call this person. So there is some moderation that happens, right? There is moderation. I moderate it. Me and you moderate it. We go in and approve. So if you ever wonder why your post does not get approved, I did not see it fit to be on the map.
Mike Brasher: Yeah. So there is some moderation that occurs there. Um, some of the other things that are in here include like hunting tips. You go into these sections and it talks about, I mean, that's where you'll find some of the articles that are previously appeared in the magazine, right?
Mallori Murphy: Previously appeared in the magazine stuff that we get our contributors just to, uh, digital only. There's a lot of, there's a lot of resources that we put out there that aren't just in the magazine. As much as I love the magazine.
Mike Brasher: Oh, so there's more.
Mallori Murphy: Alright. There's more. Like, Waterfowl360, we put so much new content into this section. There's a lot of digital pieces that come out throughout this time, too. So, you're not just getting magazine articles. You're getting a heck of a lot more.
Mike Brasher: Okay. Yeah. I'm going back to the page here because there's a lot of information here. The Waterfowl ID. Why don't you talk about that?
Mallori Murphy: That goes through… Waterfowl ID is probably one of our most visited sections of our site during Waterfowl 360 during the program, during the season, because obviously it's very important. Waterfowl identification is probably one of the most important aspects of waterfowl hunting. So you want to stay legal and want to learn a little bit about what you're seeing on the wing out there, go to waterfowlid.com.
Mike Brasher: It's also an opportunity for people to learn a little bit about the ecology of these species. This is a part of the website that I have become involved in from sort of an advisory standpoint as we're redesigning a few things. We've talked about how we group these birds and invariably, once or twice a year, we'll have people contact us in one form or another asking if we can add this bird. Some of this relates to the Waterfowler's Journal that I think is available on the Ducks Unlimited app. But then occasionally we'll have people that will want us to add a certain bird to our list in the waterfowl ID page. So we do have American coot and Sandhill crane on here. They are not waterfowl. We do know that. We actually had to retitle this section because I think it previously said just other waterfowl. And I saw that and I was like, hmm, coots and Sandhill cranes aren't waterfowl. So let's make that change. And so now it's other waterfowl and wetland birds. And so we do have those two species in there. The other interesting thing, exciting thing about this is that our web team is leading sort of an expansion of the content on this waterfowl ID page. We're working with former chief scientist, Dr. Tom Mormon, to build out additional descriptions on the sort of the life history, behaviors, and appearances and ecology of these species. So you'll be seeing those updates as we get those and as our team gets them incorporated. So, more good information there. Recipes, also. How often do you go here for recipes? I need to do that personally a little bit more often.
Mallori Murphy: A lot during the season, because obviously that all-encompassing, we want you to fulfill all aspects of the hunt. Yeah, after you go hunting, check out some of our recipes.
Mike Brasher: Everything from tacos, I think, or even maybe some drink menus in here or drink recipes in here.
Mallori Murphy: Yeah, there's some margaritas thrown in there on some of these fajitas and taco pieces. Yeah, we slip some stuff in there.
Mike Brasher: Decoy strategies, retriever training. Who are some of the people that contribute to our retriever training? Mike Stewart and some of his folks.
Mallori Murphy: Mike Stewart, Tom Davis.
Mike Brasher: All the professionals, right?
Mallori Murphy: All the professionals. I'm not as in tune in the retriever world as I probably should be. I'm not afraid of saying that either.
Mike Brasher: We can say that. That's fine. And then shooting tips, hunting gear, those from the shooting tips type of thing. We have Phil Borgeli. He's a regular contributor to the magazine. A lot of his stuff is in here as well, right? What else? What else you want to talk about in here?
Mallori Murphy: There's one section that I think might often get overlooked on there, just our hunting section in general, is we, if you ever land in bed at night, you know, want to read a cool story, go to our, we have a section called Duck Hunting Stories, and there's some wonderful, wonderful editorial pieces in there by Eddie Nickens and a lot of our magazine writers that will put just more of the story-based stuff. So if you need a good bedtime story, Go to our duck hunting story section.
Mike Brasher: I think you might even have an article in there if I remember correctly.
Mallori Murphy: It might be the lead on the page though, but I didn't do that just to do that.
Mike Brasher: Oh, okay. That was just coincidence. Coincidence that the one I wrote is the lead. There is one in here called Murphy's Law of Duck Hunting. I don't think that's about you though, right? But yeah, so anyway, a lot of great resources there. We wanted to make people aware of this because you can go to the website and find all of this information to entertain yourself throughout the year. I mean, to entertain, educate, and make yourself better in every aspect of waterfowling, waterfowl identification, preparing waterfowl that you've harvested, improving decoy strategies, contributing to migration reports. This is where hunters should come to interact with Ducks Unlimited and gain information as hunters. You know, and it's an exciting time of year for us and this, I would imagine, traffic to this site picks up substantially this time of year.
Mallori Murphy: Yes, and our social traffic too. So, anything on social, we're all the time. targeting everything back to this section of the website.
Mike Brasher: So a lot of times the articles that you will put out on a social post will link back to this, right? Yes. All right. Well, very good. Anything else, Mallory, that you wanted to leave our listeners with?
Mallori Murphy: Well, if any of our listeners are also have their hand or know somebody who knows somebody in a brand who In the future, wants to sponsor one of this, one of our most largest digital programs and our most popular from Migration Alerts to the Migration Map to Waterfowl 360. You know, let me, Mike or Chris know, if you know somebody that might want their logo recognized and to support a lot of this information coming out, let us know and we know somebody who we can get in touch with.
Mike Brasher: And that's a good point because the sponsors, the partners on Waterfowl360, our Migration Alert, our… You'll always see that brought to you by… The BPOP survey, the podcast, you name it. Those are the people that help us deliver our conservation. Their contributions, their ad sponsorship go to help us do what we do from a waterfowl wetlands conservation mission standpoint. We appreciate them. We welcome them as one of our own in delivering conservation. So, let us know if you're interested in that and we can hook you up with the right person. So, anything else?
Mallori Murphy: Yeah, her office is actually right by mine. Let us know. She's only a few steps away.
Mike Brasher: So, all right. Well, Mallory, thank you so much. We're going to have Scott Stevens come in here in just a minute and fill us in on some of his recent activities up in Prairie, Canada, what he's seen in terms of habitat conditions, some of his, what he experienced right there at the opening of the hunting season in, I think, Manitoba. So, y'all stay with us. Mallory, thank you for being here. Thanks for all that you do to deliver this great information to our waterfowl hunters throughout the season.
Mallori Murphy: Thank you, and happy hunting, y'all.
Mike Brasher: Absolutely. Okay, we are now welcoming in Dr. Scott Stephens, our senior director of—he's our prairie and boreal leader of strategery. Strategist. Strategist. Y'all know who Scott Stephens is. Dr. Scott Stephens, he's been with us many times. He is sitting with me in our studio. We are both wearing our Dumac shirts. And it's appropriate. We're going to be talking about teal, and it's also appropriate because just a couple of weeks ago, Ducts Unlimited de Mexico celebrated their 50-year anniversary. You didn't go to that, did you? I didn't go to that, no. A lot of people did. I understand they had a great celebration, great time. You chatted with anybody about… They were in Cabo.
Scott Stephens: Cabo San Lucas, that's right. Yep, to celebrate. But yeah, 50 years of work on those important wintering areas. One of the most important areas, it's where most of the Blue Wings go, right? So, it's our Blue Wing themed discussion. So, yeah, we're supporting the DUMAC.
Mike Brasher: Earlier in this episode, we spoke with Chris Jennings about a migration alert, a few, a series of migration alerts that went out. First part of September, this is when we start that, start those alerts, this, you know, for a given hunting season. And, of course, we're focusing on teal in those alerts. All the best people do. You have a kind of a migration report of a different flavor because you, which is a sort of a rite of passage for you, a tradition entering the hunting season, it has been for the past few years for you anyway, to focus on teal, blue-winged teal preferably. during that first week of the opening of the hunting season in Canada, which is 1st of September, right? That's right. And so you did that. We're here on September Friday, the 13th of September, and so you've been hunting up in Manitoba, and we wanted to get a report from you.
Scott Stephens: Yeah, last week was the opener and I went back to Manitoba to chase teal, which you're right, that has become a traditional thing for me. And yeah, maybe the first thing I was struck by, we talked on the Waterfowl Season Outlook about rains that had happened in the springtime and maybe things were a bit improved and I got up there and it's like, oh dang, it is dry.
Mike Brasher: It didn't get a whole lot of rain since then.
Scott Stephens: Yeah. But I'll admit, I was expecting conditions to be improved in where I was headed, southern Manitoba. And it was not. It was drier. We just looked at some pictures that I took of a lot of mudflats where it was some water.
Mike Brasher: Better shorebird habitat than duck habitat in that particular location.
Scott Stephens: You know, on my social media, I shared some videos of some shorebirds that are migrating. They're doing cool stuff this time of year. Lots of long-billed dowagers that are headed to Mexico to winter also. They're in migration and flocks of hundreds of birds.
Mike Brasher: They're not one of the huntable species of shorebirds.
Scott Stephens: They're not. Although, you know, we've talked about it, I'm advocating that they should be, I think, two Dowachers ought to equal one teal.
Mike Brasher: Now, people keep shutting me down on that, but like… You know Ducks Unlimited does not get in the setting of harvest regulations, right?
Scott Stephens: That's true. That's true. I'm just saying body size wise. Two Dowachers would be about the same biomass as a teal.
Mike Brasher: Probably so. So, there you go. It is an exciting time to be out in the wetlands this time of year. Birds are doing a variety of different things. Shorebirds are fattening up and getting on the wing and heading south and a lot of other Neotropical migrant songbirds that depend on wetlands doing the same thing. Waterfowl are still, some of them, still hanging out up there. Some of them, however, are already on their way south. And those, of course, the blue-winged teal, leading the vanguard of that.
Scott Stephens: Yeah, I would argue, you know, as we talk about that, it's probably related to body size, right? Smaller species are migrating sooner. Yeah, well, chickadees would argue with that. Yeah, there are exceptions, but hummingbirds should be well on their way, right?
Mike Brasher: Hummingbirds have shown up here in mass, I think, over the past 10 days or so. It was just like overnight, people started reporting hummingbirds showing up, and it's pretty cool to see those posts on social media. So, yeah, great time of year.
Scott Stephens: But teal are on the move. Maybe the other striking thing for me was this year, I believe in total, I harvested more green-winged teal than I did blue-winged teal, which is unusual. Now, I think maybe you had said, well, maybe that makes sense. There were more green-winged teal that showed up in like the Eastern Dakotas in the survey than is commonly the case because they got better water. So yeah, we know birds move around. Those birds could have bred in the Dakotas and could have hopped up north into Manitoba before they start the real full migration southward. So, that's definitely possible.
Mike Brasher: I guess on the positive side of things, you were telling us that nearly all, if not all, of the teal that you harvested were young birds, which is a sign of production.
Scott Stephens: Yep. Lots of young birds. There were a couple adult males that I shot, but I'm sure I have a bias towards those because when they go flying by, you see the bright blue wing patch, the white on the wing, that is characteristic of adult males. And yeah, we were also talking that Fish and Wildlife Service had a Facebook post where they had a couple of birds that were probably being banded and wings, and which is which? Are these females? males. So yeah, when you see a nice one with the bright white wings and the white on there, yeah, it's like, oh yeah, there's a nice Drake, adult Drake. And so I'm sure I'm selecting for those.
Mike Brasher: And I think you commented on there and you looked at the… Tail feathers. You looked at the tail feathers and you could tell both of those were young birds. That's right. I will say that male, the young male, It had fairly uniform white in those secondary coverts, which is a bit atypical for a juvenile male, blue-winged teal. I mention that because on the Thursday after this episode airs, we'll be doing a video episode where we actually are looking at some blue-winged teal wings here in studio. It's going to be a video component to that. It's a video podcast. And so, we try to point out some of those things. And so, it does become a little tricky on some of those, but this time of year, if you see those notched tail feathers, it's a dead giveaway that it's a hatchery bird.
Scott Stephens: Yeah, that's right. So, the notch is where the down feather breaks off and there's kind of a V at the end of the tail feather and then the adult feather grows in. So, that's what we're talking about.
Mike Brasher: So, drier than you anticipated it being in the area that you hunted. I think I was giving you some grief earlier this year about whether your skinny teal were going to be effective because we were thinking maybe water would be deeper and might pose some challenges. That was not the case. That was not the case.
Scott Stephens: Good thing I had skinny teal, which for those who haven't been privy to that, these are teal silhouettes that I made. So, they're like two-dimensional teal on a stick. And they go in mud flat habitats, which you commonly find teal in when you're hunting.
Mike Brasher: Yeah. Well, good. And what kind of reports have you heard from other parts of Prairie Canada? You hunted only in Manitoba, but I think you've made a few phone calls and we've heard some stories from a few other folks. This is not good. You're shaking your head. No. I don't have any reports.
Scott Stephens: Oh, you don't. Okay. I don't think I've talked to anybody else who's been hunting yet.
Mike Brasher: We heard, that's right, we were at lunch and we were hearing it was Chris Jennings and Dr. Jared Henson were sharing some of their stories with other people about it being kind of dry in Saskatchewan, I think. Yes, that's right. Yeah, and… Concerningly so. One of them said that one canceled their trip. Because they contacted the landowner that they typically associate with up there and they said, you know, don't bother. There's no water here on our place. You're going to be out of luck. So there's some still, it's gotten dry again in Prairie, Canada. Unfortunately, we were hoping that this was going to be, there's going to be some water hang on into the fault line. I'm sure there is water up there, but it's, I think the point is it's, we're not, We're not out of the woods. Not out of the woods. We're kind of back in a dry situation across much of the Prairie Canada.
Scott Stephens: Now that could change quickly if we get the right conditions come late fall before the freeze up. If we get some nice rains and the soil is saturated, we'll be in better shape. But yeah, that was definitely not the case where I was in southern Manitoba.
Mike Brasher: Okay, probably not a whole lot to report on there in terms of habitat conditions, migration status for teal right now. It's just that you've been, you were successful, there was some production, it's kind of dry, and you're going to get back out and chase a few more birds here in the near future, right?
Scott Stephens: That's right. The advice is hunt.
Mike Brasher: Life is short. Life is short. You better hunt. What is next on your agenda? You're going back to South Dakota where you now live. You're going back tonight. Yep. And I think you were telling me the hunting season in South Dakota opens next weekend. Yeah, not this weekend, but next weekend. Well, so, yeah, okay, so if this comes, if this is released on, like, whatever it is, the Tuesday after the 13th, I can't do the math, like the 17th or 18th, something like that.
Scott Stephens: Yeah, it'll be the weekend of the 21st. Okay.
Mike Brasher: And this will be a bit of a new experience for you. That's right, I'm climbing the learning curve. You're gonna have to learn where you can hunt and where you can be successful hunting. Does that excite you, like getting to learn new places?
Scott Stephens: It does. Yeah. I enjoy that because when you hunt in the prairies, things are different every year. And the place you hunted last year and was awesome, there's a different crop planted in the field or the water level changes. And so it's super dynamic. I think figuring out the logistics of all that is part of the appeal, but sometimes it's frustrating.
Mike Brasher: Are you going to be doing that on your own, or do you have some other people that you're going to be leaning on to help you with that? I'm not fishing for an invitation, if that's what you think. No, you're welcome to come and help sort things out. I've been known to do that once or twice, but that's not what I'm doing.
Scott Stephens: Yeah, I will probably start out on my own, but I do have friends and colleagues scattered across South Dakota that if they offered up, hey, come here, we'll point you in the right direction, I would not turn that down.
Mike Brasher: Anything else to leave our friends with? Other than life is short, you better hunt. It's an exciting time of year. I guess the other thing that I would say is it's also a great time of year to get involved with our event system. You know, it's banquet season. It's ramping up. Everybody is excited. Energy is high. We've had a favorable breeding population report. Yeah, it's going to be dry in a few places, but we're hearing about some production and people are in the Great Lakes and even in the Dakotas. I've heard a lot of people talking about and seen some reports of teal broods and people are expecting teal to have been fairly productive in the Dakotas given the rain that fell there. So, optimism in the air. Get out, be with those that are like-minded. Go visit a Ducks Unlimited event somewhere near you, ducks.org forward slash events. Go have a good time. Spend some money for conservation. Do that. Buy your duck stamp. Buy your duck stamp. Also, if you're listening to this from Canada, you have event systems in that part of the country as well. Go check out the Ducks Unlimited Canada website and be part of something bigger than yourself in a lot of different ways. Buy your duck stamp or multiple duck stamps. This is a time to get fired up about being outside and contributing to conservation in a whole lot of different ways. Absolutely. Scott, thank you so much for being part of this, and thanks to our earlier guests on this episode, Mallory Murphy and Chris Jennings, for bringing all the great content to you via migration alerts, websites, and everything else. So, thanks to our producer over there in the corner now, Chris Isaac, for the awesome job that he does, and thank you to you, the listener, for your time and support of wetlands and waterfowl conservation. Life is short. Go hunting. That's right.