A friend and I visited Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area on this pleasant, mid-Missouri morning; we observed a decent variety of birds on that floodplain refuge, including almost a hundred great blue herons, great egrets, a bald eagle and a peregrine falcon. Noticeably absent were waterfowl, except for a handful of Canada geese, eight pied-billed grebes, a lone mallard and a backlit flock of ducks, too distant to identify.
How to explain a dearth of ducks on the Missouri River floodplain in early autumn? Based on my recent journey up the Missouri Valley, I suspect that persistent river flooding, from South Dakota to northwest Missouri may be to blame, offering extensive shallows that attract the migrant waterfowl. Indeed, massive flocks of coot and ducks were feeding in those floodwaters when I passed through.
Though I have no personal knowledge of the tally, I would guess that blue-winged teal hunting was a bust in central Missouri this September; those ducks are usually abundant at Eagle Bluffs by now and not a single one (except, perhaps, in that distant flock) was observed this morning. Climate change is already delaying the arrival of autumn migrants and I wonder if the extensive Midwest flooding (perhaps also related to global warming) is augmenting that tardiness.
How to explain a dearth of ducks on the Missouri River floodplain in early autumn? Based on my recent journey up the Missouri Valley, I suspect that persistent river flooding, from South Dakota to northwest Missouri may be to blame, offering extensive shallows that attract the migrant waterfowl. Indeed, massive flocks of coot and ducks were feeding in those floodwaters when I passed through.
Though I have no personal knowledge of the tally, I would guess that blue-winged teal hunting was a bust in central Missouri this September; those ducks are usually abundant at Eagle Bluffs by now and not a single one (except, perhaps, in that distant flock) was observed this morning. Climate change is already delaying the arrival of autumn migrants and I wonder if the extensive Midwest flooding (perhaps also related to global warming) is augmenting that tardiness.
