FowlWeather Podcast

We welcome Dr. Blake-Bradshaw (Abby) to The FowlWeather Podcast Young Waterfowl Professional Series. Abby is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Forbes Biological Station located in Havana, IL where she conducts applied research across a variety of topics to inform management decisions. Current projects include studying how waterfowl respond to spatial and temporal changes in hunting intensity and evaluating temporal patterns in...

We welcome Tim Maron to The FowlWeather Podcast Young Waterfowl Professional Series. Tim is a graduate of SUNY ESF where DrMike teaches and currently working with Winous Point Marsh Conservancy where he has assisted duck banding, duck blind brushing, various wetland and waterbird projects, and assisted as a punter during the hunting season. In the Fall, Tim will matriculate at The Ohio State University under the guidance of Dr. Bob...

Most folks know the Clint Eastwood movie, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Well this is The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly in population trends among species of waterfowl through time. Why do some species populations do well (The Good), why do some species cycle so strongly (The Bad), and why did some species populations tank and then never recover (The Ugly). First and foremost, we live on an amazing continent with a diversity of wat...

We welcome Grant Rhodes to The FowlWeather Podcast Young Waterfowl Professional Series. Grant is in Dr. Kevin Ringelman's avian ecology lab at the University of California Davis working collaboratively with the Delta Waterfowl Foundation. His research is focused on using drone-based methods to better understand waterfowl brood abundance and duckling survival in relation to habitat characteristics and management actions in the C...

Breeding waterfowl surveys do not predict mid-winter and migration surveys. Non-breeding season surveys have very specific objectives. They should not be compared to breeding waterfowl survey numbers. DrMike details why the USFWS breeding waterfowl and mid-winter surveys are Apples and Oranges…they are not comparable. DrMike goes off again! “I don’t have ducks, but they predicted ducks”…TEARS. BooHoo……NOoooo, JUST, NO!. Nobody pred...

We welcome Cory Highway to The FowlWeather Podcast Young Waterfowl Professional Series. Cory Highway is a Ph.D. student at Tennessee Tech University, working under the guidance of Dr. Bradley Cohen. His research centers on the ecology of wintering mallards in western Tennessee, with a particular focus on enhancing landscape connectivity for wintering waterfowl. A dedicated outdoorsman, Cory is passionate about conducting applied re...

We welcome Hannah Sabatier, Hannah is our first Canadian born guest on the Young Waterfowl Professionals Series, hailing from Manitoba, she has been working on the prairie since 2018, but new to working with breeding waterfowl for the past 3 years.Hannah just completed her MS degree at UW Steven’s Point w Dr. Ben Sedinger on drone detection of waterfowl, and will be headed to work with Dr. Mitch Weegman at the U of Saskatchewan nex...

How does the USFWS and Canadian Wildlife Service track waterfowl harvest? How do they track the number of waterfowl hunters and their harvest? Today on The FowlWeather Podcast we cut through the BS to report the facts about how we keep track of duck harvest and hunter metrics. In response to a massive amount of misinformation coming across your wavelengths, The FowlWeather Podcast embarked on the 2025 DataStream Series. It can be a...

In response to a massive amount of misinformation coming across your wavelengths,The FowlWeather Podcast embarked on the 2025 DataStream Series. It can be attractive to find conspiracies that help explain what you observe as a duck hunter, or maybe you’ve even thought up some fun fake news yourself. The reality is that the long history of data used in waterfowl conservation and management in North America is a success story that ev...

All of us in the profession of Waterfowl and Wetlands science, conservation, and management came from somewhere, these are the stories of young, passionate conservationists that have made their passion for the ducks into a career. 

Catrina Terry is the waterfowl research scientist for Ducks Unlimited’s Great Plains Region. Catrina started with DU in May 2021 to head up the undergraduate research program and bring more opportunities ...

With turkey seasons open across the south and turkeys starting to strut their stuff all the way to Canada there is no better time to talk turkeys. What do the experts have in common? How do they tag out wherever they go? Also, we tackle a tough one, why are turkeys tanking including a hypothesis that my own lab at ESF has started to tackle? Is it habitat, is it predators, is it disease, is it weather, is it all of the above simply ...

All you ever wanted to know about king greenhead in this 4 part series about the History of the North American Mallard. In Part 3, we hit the highlights about changes to the mallard population through time and our historical and current approach to harvest management. Why did we have restrictive seasons before but not today? We also talk turkeys, the breakup of the Polar Vortex, and nasty narratives that must die, all this week on ...

All you ever wanted to know about king greenhead in this 4 part series about the History of the North American Mallard. In Part 2, we hit the highlights about what makes the greenhead population tick. What runs the mallard population? How does winter, spring, and summer make the mallard machine run? Dead hens don’t lay eggs, right? But fat hens do, and once those ducklings hatch, what do they need to find their way down the flyways...

All you ever wanted to know about king greenhead in this 4 part series about the History of the North American Mallard. Species split into black ducks, mottled ducks, Mexican ducks, and the greenheaded mallard. With 14 mallard like ducks across the globe the greenheaded mallard is the most widespread. We start out with a quick update on the Polar Vortex for our weather nerds, clean up some mallard mis-information still floating aro...