Recent decades have seen a redistribution of wintering waterfowl across the Mississippi and Central Flyways. While climate change is frequently cited as a dominant driver of these shifts, some evidence potentially suggests that land use and habitat change are the primary forces reshaping where mallards winter, with climate acting more as an amplifier than a root cause. This distinction matters, because it reframes both how we interpret survey and harvest data and how future conservation and management strategies should be prioritized.

When waterfowl are provided with quality wetland habitats without hunting pressure/disturbance, birds develop fairly predictable patterns from roosting, feeding, and resting areas.

Site Fidelity and Distributions of Wintering Mallards

When considering all our options for disturbing a moist soil unit, it could be summarized into the following categories: mechanical, chemical, flooding and fire. The question for any wetland manager would then be, ‘what methods should I use?

In the previous posts we covered some of the specifics to managing for waterfowl. In this post we will bring all those elements together to create what is commonly referred to as a ‘wetland complex.’

Historically, moist soil wetlands were areas that had some type of natural disturbance (beavers, floods, fires, high winds, etc.) that created openings in bottomland hardwood forest.

The first time someone steps onto a lease or a new waterfowl property they’ve purchased, the task of waterfowl habitat and management can be daunting.

Summer is here, and the bugs are out at WingSelect, but that means plenty of food for critters at the farm.

Spring floods are common at the farm, but in the past few years, it seems like we are experiencing these floods more often.