Ducks Unlimited Podcast

Mike Brasher: Hey, everybody, welcome back. I am Dr. Mike Brasher. I'm going to be your host on this episode, and it's a pretty special episode, sort of an impromptu thing that we're going to do. We brought in Josh Dooley and Frank Baldwin to give us an update on sort of goose production for this year. But as we were starting the conversation, they started telling me about sort of the pace of the migration up there in Canada and farther north. And so we said, well, let's call an audible and let's do a couple of things here. We're going to create a quick little episode here. where they will give us an update on kind of what they've been doing, what they've been hearing with regard to duck migration in a couple of areas up there. And then we're gonna kind of cut this episode and then go on to another one that you hear a little bit later on talking about goose production outlook, the main topic that we wanted to talk about today. But for right now, this is a bonus episode for you. It is October 9th when we're recording this. So let me welcome in first, Josh Dooley, introduce yourself to our listeners.

Josh Dooley: Hey, Mike, really happy to be here. Really happy to talk about geese. So yeah, my name is Josh Dooley. I'm a goose biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. So I'm in our division of migratory bird management in our branch of assessment decision support. So our branch is really involved with providing you know, analytical support, technical support to evaluate population status, evaluate take and harvest of waterfowl species. So I serve as a goose biologist. So some of my annual duties are, you know, providing updates on goose population status. So I help compile our annual status report and other memos. You know, with that, I get to go out to all the flyway meetings, provide status updates across the flyways, updates on research projects, and work closely with a lot of our state partners on goose regulatory issues and management plan updates.

Mike Brasher: Well, moving next then, we have a guy that's been with us on a couple of episodes before, Frank Baldwin. I could probably get close to your title, but I'm not going to do that. So Frank, tell our listeners who you are and what you do.

Frank Baldwin: Yeah. Thanks again for having me, Mike. So I'm a biologist with Canadian Wildlife Service. I'm based in Winnipeg. work in our aquatic unit, which is seven employees, and run our monitoring programs in Manitoba for a variety of different programs, from May Marine Population Habitat Survey, Giant Canada Goose Banning, Duck Banning, variety of other monitoring programs. And then a big component of my job is running our Arctic goose banding program in Arctic Canada. So, five sites in Arctic Canada. I work a lot with Josh on various goose initiatives, research monitoring. So, lucky to be in the field a fair bit.

Mike Brasher: We appreciate both of you guys and everything that y'all do. As I mentioned here at the outset, the primary reason for getting y'all on the line today was to talk about goose production, what we've learned based on a variety of surveys. We're going to do that next. Like I said, here we have a little opportunity for a bonus episode. We're going to talk about the pace of migration. Each of you guys have had the opportunity to get out in the field, to talk to a few people up there in Canada and Northwest Territories. So, Josh, I guess I'm going to start with you. Let's go up to where you were most recently and some of the people you had spoken with. I think you were telling us that you were at a meeting in Yellowknife. And so tell our people where Yellowknife is for those that may not be aware, and then kind of give us a rundown on what you saw and what you heard.

Josh Dooley: Yeah, so I can provide a pretty limited update from Yellowknife. So Yellowknife is in the Northwest Territories of Canada, pretty far north, a couple hundred miles from kind of tree line. So very far north in Canada. We were up there for Ardegoos Joint Venture Meeting. So that's one thing I didn't mention earlier, but I serve as co-chair for the technical committee of the Ardegoos Joint Venture. So the Arctic Goose Drive Venture, you may have talked about the Habitat JVs in other podcasts, but there's also three species JVs underneath NAWAMP, the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. Arctic Goose Drive Venture is one of those. So through that, you know, I collaborate a lot with various project PIs on goose research projects and been fortunate to get up and get involved with a lot of research projects throughout Alaska and the Arctic and Subarctic Canada. So, we were up there for our annual meeting. Pretty limited, just, you know, folks that live there gave a few updates. A few people had come in early to hunt. I did not, unfortunately. But they said they had a little bit limited success when we were there. So, we were just there last week. That was the first week of October. A lot of birds had already pushed through at that point, was the general consensus. There were still a few mallards and other dabblers around, but the big bulk of birds had really pushed through. It sounded like September 20 or towards the end of September, which is pretty typical for that area and that time. Nothing really out of the ordinary, it seemed, as far as migration, but a lot of birds had moved out from the far north at that point. And that seems consistent. We've got a few updates, too, from some of the marking projects, you know, where they have some GPS, GSM markers on birds, cackling geese, white fronds, other species, and yeah, it seemed like a pretty big push of birds you know out of the Arctic late September. That's consistent with weather too so when we were there the first week of October it was below freezing most nights so starting to get chilly in those parts.

Mike Brasher: Well I know those of us that are anywhere south of there are happy to hear that it's getting cold somewhere because it's certainly not been cold down here or really in much of the northern U.S. at this point. It's still quite warm. So, Josh, one of the things that I think a lot of people noticed this year when the breeding population survey results came out, the number of ducks estimated up there in some of the western boreal forests, some of those more northern survey strata were up substantially. We talked about how that was tied to some of the drought on the prairies when birds migrated through and a lot of birds just kind of continued on north. Was there any talk of that, not to kind of put you on the spot with sort of unexpected questions, but was there any talk of that from any of the folks that you met with there? Did they see more ducks up in that area? Did they see, did they notice a larger the number of ducks kind of migrating back through anything related to kind of what we saw on the BPOP numbers?

Josh Dooley: No, nothing. I mean, I heard some, yeah, limited anecdotes here and there, but I seen that, you know, that sounded generally consistent with some of the reports on the ground that, yeah, it seemed like more birds a little farther north. I think Frank could probably speak to some of the prairie conditions a lot more, but that's kind of typical with flyover years that you might see more birds in those areas from some of the surveys. And I think that, yeah, folks observe that for sure.

Mike Brasher: Frank, I want to go to you now because you were just telling us that you've been off here the past few days. You actually hunted this morning. Your commitment to the cause of the Ducks Unlimited podcast compelled you to make that drive back to your house, I guess is where you are, to join us for this time. We greatly appreciate that. You've been out hunting, you've been spending some time in a few locations there in Manitoba. Give us the general sense of bird numbers, wetland conditions, and then one of the particularly notable observations you offered was that there's still a lot of blue wings around up there on October 9th.

Frank Baldwin: Yeah, really interesting year again. Another really warm, dry fall for us. It's been uncharacteristically warm. I think we've had one frost in southern Manitoba so far. A lot of people still have vegetables in their gardens, tomatoes that are ripening on the vine, which is really unusual, obviously, for October. And yeah, you really see it in the marsh. So I've been lucky, I've been out hunting a bit and been doing some productivity surveys for geese and swabbing some birds for avian flu. So I've been out a fair bit and yeah, a lot of early migrants that are still hanging around. So large numbers of blue and teal, that's really unusual, or it has been really unusual. I guess it's become more normal the past few years with these warm years. Um, even still adult blue wings, which is really, uh, really odd. So yeah, a couple of adult blue wings that were shot this morning. And, um, and, uh, yeah, a lot of, a lot of pintails, um, in, in our, in this, in especially, uh, Natley Marsh, north of Winnipeg, that's kind of unusual for us to see huge numbers of pintails. Um, I think that's probably related to that flyover though, you know, probably for boreal birds that, and subarctic birds that are on their way down and a huge number of young in those groups. So from what I've seen and just talking to friends that I've been hunting too, so pretty interesting seeing that number of juveniles in the kill and just that number of birds kind of in that part of central Manitoba, that's a bit odd. And so, yeah, I think a few things like that going on and they're forecasting really late warm conditions for us, right through to the end of October right now. So no sign of things changing.

Mike Brasher: Yeah, we spoke with a couple of meteorologists here recently. It's definitely supposed to be warm down here. This is sort of a developing La Nina year, maybe a weak to moderate La Nina. And we're hoping for some, typically that brings like cooler than normal weather for those northern latitudes where y'all are. It certainly hasn't happened yet. We're cheering for it down here. But it's glad to hear the reports of abundant pintails being observed. I heard that from a few other people as well. What about wetland conditions there in Manitoba? I know you've been hunting a few areas that are big water. I'm not going to disclose the location, but I know you've been successful in a few of those hunts chasing some divers. But in terms of those prairie wetlands across the landscape that you've traversed, is it pretty dry in Manitoba at this time?

Frank Baldwin: Yeah, it's really dry. You could pretty much go anywhere in a truck right now. Everybody's harvesting, finishing up harvesting soybeans. They're starting on corn now. Yeah, there's no water really except for those really permanent basins and big marshes. So I think that's one of the reasons hunting's been pretty good in the big marshes is that's where the water is. Another kind of interesting, I guess, anecdote is just Talking to a few outfitters who target snow geese. A couple big pushes of snow geese and cacklers the last few days, which is a bit late really. So talking to a few people just wondering where those birds might have been sitting for this time. So yeah, maybe not really forced to leave parts of possibly the Hudson Bay coast. It is pretty late to see those kind of big arrivals of snows and tacklers. Normally, they've been here for a while, so that's also interesting.

Mike Brasher: Yeah, but you've still got blue wings, too, and so it's late in that regard, too. So, I'm going to cut the conversation off here because I don't want you to disclose too much of the information that we're going to discuss about the goose production outlook and what people may be seeing up there. I will just tease it by saying that the anecdotal reports that I had been hearing Um, up to this point, I've been pretty good. And so you guys have brought some data to the conversation that we're going to have. Uh, so we're going to, we're going to cut this conversation off right here. I might try to get in touch with somebody else to kind of add to this little bonus migration update for folks. Um, so Josh, Frank, thank you for being with us here and providing this extra update. Uh, we will catch you on the next episode. Encourage people to, to look for this, this forthcoming episode on goose production. That'll be out here in a few days after you hear this one. At least I think that's what the timing on this is going to be. So Josh Dooley with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Frank Baldwin, the Canadian Wildlife Service. Appreciate you guys joining us and providing this quick update. And we're going to catch you on the next episode here, where we talk about goose production. So thank you guys.

Josh Dooley: Sounds good. Thanks a lot, Mike.

Mike Brasher: Hey everybody, welcome back and we have our next guest with us here and Chris hit it, hit the music. Loyal listeners will know what that means. Dr. Scott Stevens is joining us for a prairie update. What day is it? Is it October 10th? 10-10. 10-10. And so we just talked with Josh Dooley, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Well, so I guess I have to clarify, we're doing this on the second day, the day after, you know, because I revealed that it's 10-10. Yesterday was 10-9. Yeah, a day separated here, but we spoke with Josh Dooley yesterday, Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as Frank Baldwin of the Canadian Wildlife Service. It was a little impromptu episode. You heard those guys before the break, and so here we are the day after, connecting with Dr. Scott Stevens, who himself is Not in South Dakota at the moment, not in Canada at the moment. You're… Casey Moe. Kansas City, Missouri. Um, down there taking some time off. I guess, I mean, I guess you're kind of working a little bit there too during the day, but tonight you're going to be going to a baseball game. I know you, I know you've been working today cause I could, I heard you on a conference call, uh, through some of the walls here. You've been, you've been working. I've been working.

Scott Stephens: Yeah, but I'm going to the game tonight. Go Royals.

Mike Brasher: Game four. This is elimination game. By the time folks hear this, you will know if you're a baseball fan what the outcome of that was and whether Scott is happy or sad at the time when you are listening to this. He is a Kansas City Royals fan. and he needs them to win tonight.

Scott Stephens: We need to send the series back to New York for Saturday.

Mike Brasher: That's right. So, the real reason for getting you on here, rather than to play some music and just tell a few jokes, is to have you give us an update on what you saw when you were up in Canada last week. You were up there You know, you and I and several others do a lot of texting back and forth, kind of keeping up with what one another's doing and where we're going and what we're seeing, and so you made your way to Saskatchewan last week. You contacted me and asked about, sort of, if any of the import guidelines for bringing birds back had changed, and I told you, nope, it's the same as what they were last year. So, that told me you were going up there to hunt some birds and shoot a few birds, and I know from some photos that you were successful. So, give us your sort of overall impression, without giving away your secret spot, overall, where were you in Saskatchewan, and what was this year's impression relative to past years?

Scott Stephens: Yeah, I was east of Saskatoon. That's as specific as we'll get. Fair enough. And my impressions were, yeah, so I drove up last Thursday. And as I drove up, it was still very dry. I'm the guy who's talked about it being dry in Manitoba. It was dry in Saskatchewan. In fact, there's always a little bit of a bias depending on the timing you're coming through country. But I didn't see ducks or geese until I got, like, to Nokomis. And, uh, there were a few geese, but it was dry. Like, there was not water.

Mike Brasher: Like, from the US-Canada border all the way up to Nokomis. And that's, like, up past Regina. That's all the way up to, what is it, the, uh, 16, Highway 16, the Yellowhead Highway? Yeah. Runs east-west. Yep. Wow.

Scott Stephens: Yeah, so it was pretty dry. We did find some birds. There were ducks. But even that country that we were in, I spent time in, and it's as dry as I've seen it. So there are some more permanent water. I would call it semi-permanent water that's drawn down. And birds are still using that, taking advantage of what resources are there. But it was dry. There were still decent numbers of birds. You know, I was most impressed, you know, from looking at pictures that there were lots of pintails and there were lots of hatch year pintails. So pintails, wherever these birds came from, seemed to have some production. So that's good. There were mallards around too and cranes. But yeah, I was most struck by how dry it was. And many of the landscapes are as dry as I've seen them.

Mike Brasher: Did you shoot many mallards? Did you chase those very much?

Scott Stephens: Yeah, I mean, we were… Yes, we hunted three days and we were hunting… We hunted two days in fields. One day was a pea field, one day was a wheat or barley field, and one day on a wetland. And so there were always mallards too. The last day I had sort of… We were in a pea field and the report was there had been a lot of pintails there. They had hunted that area earlier in the week. And so I had kind of said, well, there are no restrictions on pintails in in the limits anymore in Canada. You can shoot eight pintails. It wasn't many years ago you were limited to four. So I said, I've never shot eight pintails before. That would be kind of cool. Now, usually the challenge is you're out there and then Mallards will decoy more readily and beat the Pintails in even if they're working. And then, you know, then it's a test of willpower. It's like if there's a flock of Greenheads hanging there, it's usually hard for me to pass up on them. But I had sort of said, okay, goal is to shoot some Pintails. And I did end up, I ended up shooting eight Pintails that day.

Mike Brasher: Now, I know it's very difficult this time of year to differentiate drakes from hens, but I know from looking at the photos, you guys did pretty good in that regard.

Scott Stephens: We did. I would tell you that in my eight pintails, I shot one hen pintail, and that was early. And I was kicking myself because I think I sent you the video after I was done. We had a Drake Pintail like fluttering over the Mojo decoy like a moth. So yeah, it was a day there were opportunities and the other guys killed a few Mallards, but it was mostly flocks of Pintails and Wigeon. We had Wigeon too. So there were mallards, I think the first day I killed four mallards and four pintails. And then the second day I killed like six mallards and two pintails.

Mike Brasher: What was the weather like while you were there?

Scott Stephens: It was warm. Actually, the first day that we hunted, a little low pressure system came through. So the forecast was for like 45 mile an hour winds and rain and you know, like. Having done this a time or two now, I should be smarter where it's like, we actually went out there in the morning at oh dark 30. And then now, now we did recover. We got out there and we said, eh, I'm not sure we should like, not sure this is a great idea to set up right now. And we pulled the pair.

Mike Brasher: I mean, shooting in 45 mile per hour winds. I mean, where does your shot string go on that? Right.

Scott Stephens: Yeah. Good question. Nowhere good. So, so we recovered. We said, no, we're not going to hunt in this stuff. Came back sort of. regrouped, the rain moved through, we went out in the afternoon, and yeah, that was our first hunt, was kind of an afternoon, evening hunt, and it was good. We shot Mallards and Pintails, and they decoyed nice, but it was kind of a gray day. So, you know, as you're trying to, if you play funny games like trying to shoot only drakes, you know, you're kind of squinting and, you know, waiting until you get the birds right. Oh yeah, there's a drake, and Um, I think we, I think we did really well that day. We didn't shoot a hand. Yeah. So whether, you know, we had some rain, but it was short lived and it's still dry in that country, you know, by the next day you could drive wherever you want it to again.

Mike Brasher: And above average temperatures for this time of year still, I think what was it? Frank Baldwin was telling us yesterday that they had only had one day below where they had a frost thus far this year only. And that's late. Yeah.

Scott Stephens: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And probably not a hard frost. There had not been a hard frost there where I was either.

Mike Brasher: The other thing that Frank spoke with us about is he's still seeing, this is in Manitoba for Frank, he's still seeing a lot of blue wings. What did you see? And I also heard that from a guy in North Dakota last week, still seeing a number of blue wings. Did you see many blue wings in Saskatchewan?

Scott Stephens: I saw a few, not the concentrations that I saw in Manitoba in early September when I was there. But yeah, they're still… And we can speculate they're probably some of those that were maybe late hatch broods or that thing that they're still getting in condition to do the migration because they were probably hatched a little later than is normal.

Mike Brasher: Josh Dooley was telling us that they had… I guess he had been at Yellowknife, and some of the folks he had talked to said they've had some cold weather, they had seen a few pushes of birds go through, and so presumably that means they're kind of heading south into the prairies. So, I mean, obviously you're not gonna know if you saw any of that, but otherwise, I mean, it's unseasonably warm, maybe… It's kind of hard to find birds, it sounds like. You didn't see a lot. Of course, if there's not a lot of water around, you're not going to have a lot of birds. So it kind of makes you wonder, where are they? Are they hanging out in some of the park lands right now? Or have they made it on farther south into North Dakota, South Dakota? I don't, do you have any read on that based on what you've heard or seen as you drove from South Dakota into North Dakota? Did you, better wetland conditions? You see, see bird numbers that would make you kind of excited?

Scott Stephens: Not really. I mean, in, yeah, I drove through North Dakota on the way back and yeah, there are better wetland conditions there, but not, you know, my impression was not that many birds yet just because, you know, they haven't been pushed out of, more northern areas. So when I hunted the opening weekend in eastern South Dakota, and I was mostly looking for blue wings, but there were some mallards around there too. Um, but yeah, they're, you know, for, for species that need some weather to really kick migration. And we have not had that yet.

Mike Brasher: And then what about geese? Did you notice a lot of geese that we got reports from the guys, uh, from Frank and Josh about kind of what they were seeing a pretty good, pretty good ratio of, of young to adults. Did you kind of happen to notice that in the flocks that you were seeing?

Scott Stephens: Yeah, there were definitely a bunch of white geese around, and then the wetland that we hunted on the second day, there were some geese that actually had been day roosting on that, and they were coming back mid-morning. So, we shot a few little canadas and some white fronts, and of the white fronts we shot, I think we killed three, and all three were young birds that were hatched this year. So, yeah, I would say my impressions were there seemed to be some production in those arctic nesting geese, and yeah, I'm sure Frank talked about that.

Mike Brasher: They did, and I'll encourage people to listen to the episode that's going to come out, I think, on Tuesday. We dig into the details of that. The 2024 Arctic Goose Production Outlook. We went for about 45 minutes or an hour, got lots of good information from those guys. So, tune in to get all the latest fresh data. Actually, Frank is going to present some data on what they saw in terms of those flocks up there in the prairies. And so, Um, tune in for that. Where do you go next, Scott? What kind of hunting exploit is next on your list? I know you have some, if not, you're thinking about it.

Scott Stephens: Yeah, good question. I would love to get back to Saskatchewan. I'm not sure if that's given other duties as assigned. I'm not sure. Like, I don't have that down on the calendar yet.

Mike Brasher: You've been all over the place. You were in Mexico. That's right. You and Stacy went down there. She won a trip through her job, through her work. And then you went to Baltimore, right? That's right. Watched the baseball in Baltimore. And then down to Saskatchewan and now down to Kansas City. Um, my goodness, traveling man. Yep. On the go. Where's next? Maybe back to Saskatchewan. Anything else lined up?

Scott Stephens: Well, yeah, back to South Dakota. And then, uh, yeah, I mean, duck seasons are open there and I'm climbing, climbing the learning curve in South Dakota. My impression is it gets better later in October. So, yeah, I will probably get back to Canada at least when things are kind of locking up there and, you know, birds are stacking up to make the final push. That's kind of the next time for sure I have penciled in on the calendar.

Mike Brasher: You need to get back up there so you can shoot some of those big red-legged northern mallards that are coming through. Red-legged northerns, I've heard about those before. Yeah, maybe we can talk about those. I think we've talked about that before, what that phenomenon is. And let's see, I was going to ask you one other question. I don't recall what it was now. Going to the game tonight.

Scott Stephens: Going to the game tonight. I was going to tell you, I took along the coyote decoy, but it did not get deployed. It didn't. Okay.

Mike Brasher: No. Just didn't need it. Didn't need it. Had to resort to it. I did remember what I was going to ask you. It eventually came back to me. Did you have any issue coming back across the border with your birds?

Scott Stephens: I did not. And the other thing some listeners may be interested in, you know, there's the new regulations for importation of your dog to bring in your back dog back into the U.S. Yeah. And I have crossed twice. And each time I have offered to the customs agent, I said, hey, and I've got this confirmation of the information I submitted on the dog. And they were like, no, we don't need to look at that. Take that with a grain of salt. But have it anyway. That's right. Take it with a grain of salt. The next guy may definitely want to see it, but twice now they were like, eh, we're not too worried about that.

Mike Brasher: Did they inspect your birds? Did they check? They didn't. Okay.

Scott Stephens: They didn't look at them. They just said, oh, you know, you've been hunting, you've got to fill out this form. So, you know, I had a detailed inventory by the day that I shot them and it turned out on the form. They just want to know. how many of each species that you have in your possession that you're bringing back. So, you know, I had to tally up and say, oh yeah, I got eight mallards and I got. you know, whatever it is, 12-pin tails.

Mike Brasher: I guess it had been a while since you had brought birds back into the U.S. because you were living in Canada. Okay. Yeah.

Scott Stephens: Well, in fact, recently in Canada, the rules changed where it's like, if your preference is to breast birds, you breast them, and as long as they're frozen, then they are no longer in your possession. while you're in Canada.

Mike Brasher: But to bring them back to the U.S., you do have to have a wing attached regardless of all that. Absolutely. Yeah, so. Yeah. There's probably a few other questions that people have as we're talking about this, but I don't want to get into that without knowing 100% accurately about some of those things, so. Right. Okay. Well, uh, I think that's, I think that's about all we got. You, I think I asked you the other day, if you're going to be making it down here to headquarters anytime soon, you don't have anything like that on your, on your calendar, but let me know when you do. Uh, we'll try to sit you down in the studio and come up with some other fun conversation that typically is not very difficult for you and I to find something to talk about. That's right. Okay. And hey, Chris, how'd we do on time? I promised you 15 minutes, less than 15 minutes. What did we do? He was asleep over there. We'll see if he leaves right at 15. We'll see if he leaves this in there whenever I called him out for sleeping. You know, Chris does a good job with these things. He does a great job. Sometimes I have to call him out on a few things, but he calls me out too. It's kind of a give and take. That's the way this works.

Scott Stephens: Yeah. Well, we should point out like this was set up for 4.30 and Mike Brasher did not arrive until what, Chris?

Mike Brasher: 437 or something, yeah. I don't need both of you ganging up on me for this. That's okay. I will lose every time. All right, well, Scott Stevens, our Senior Director of Prairie and Boreal Conservation Strategy. I got it. That's a mouthful, isn't it? It is, it is. Thank you, Scott, for joining us. Is there a rallying cry for the Royals tonight? Do we say, what's the chant? Go Royals, go blue?

Scott Stephens: Yeah, it's the clap. It's ta-ta-ta-ta-ta. Let's go, Royals. Okay, there you go. And then you repeat. Yeah, there you go.

Mike Brasher: Well, do that once or twice for me. I'm sure you will. Y'all have a good time tonight. Thank you for everything that you do. We'll catch up with you later. We thank our producer, Chris Isaac, who does a great job with the production of this and with tolerating all of our shenanigans here and there. And then to you, the listener, we of course thank you for your time. We thank you for spending it with us. And for being loyal listeners and most importantly for supporting Ducks Unlimited and Wetlands and Waterfowl Conservation. And tune in for that episode that's coming out on Tuesday if you care about geese. Thanks, y'all.