Saving the Receipts
A lesson on citizen science, midnight snacks, and documenting the “Good Ol’ Days”
“They were here yesterday, I’m not sure what’s going on,” I told my partner for the morning.
By “they” I meant the four scaup I saw in this marsh yesterday. My partner - judging from his body language - was expecting gadwall and an assortment of divers by the thousands. I’m unsure of where the communication broke down.
Okay, perhaps there was a bit of embellishment on my part about how the morning was supposed to go. But I’d been turned down enough to know that the smallest of white lies was necessary to assure the morning’s hunt happened.
Of course, not even the four scaup showed up that morning. Laughs were tense, shells unspent. I began to question my own scouting abilities if I was even capable of picking a winner.
It took several tries - mostly by myself - before I tweaked my approach enough to make that spot worthwhile.
I’ve been keeping a journal for several years now to track the best set of circumstances for each spot in my regular rotation. It tracks details such as wind direction, barometric pressure, moon phase, and temperature, so I’ll have the most accurate representation of what the birds might do with the impending conditions.
The author’s father picks up snow goose fold-ups after a late season hunt. The trip’s bag was of little significance; the “Notes” section of the author’s waterfowl journal was filled with lines of the rare occasion where father and son hunt together. Photo by Ryne Berthelot
Several times I’ve hunted a spot for the vast majority of a season with little success, averaging no more than two birds per hunt. Then, as if a light switch was flipped, numbers increase, both in flight and in the bag. Maybe it’s because of wind direction, or perhaps because of a particular species’ migratory schedule.
After two seasons of records, I can’t say I’ve found much correlation between the elements and the spots I’ve hunted. A certain temperature range didn’t yield significantly more birds, though days in the 60s seemed to produce the most. Dips and rises in barometric pressure showed no difference in activity. A few indicators provided some results under specific circumstances.
For instance, when I hunted areas with obvious feed such as millet and rice fields, days nearest the full moon that month produced less, while the days nearest the new moon produced marginally better. Anecdotal evidence also supported that claim; the sounds of wingbeats, quacks, and whistles filled the brightly lit night of a full moon. I presume it’s because the birds could see better throughout the night, therefore feeding all night and leaving to rest the next morning. New moon mornings were substantially darker, with less activity. Morning flights began a few minutes later than their full-moon counterparts.
Then, of course, came the weather front changes. I found it difficult to enter front activity as a data point, though I did my best to mention any major temperature shifts in the “Notes” section of my journal entries. More often than not, if a major front were to roll through in the middle of the hunt, the hunting was by and large a success. However, cold fronts that came through within 24 hours before the start of the hunt were far more hit-or-miss.
As the reader has probably guessed by now, I’m no scientist. At best, I’m a writer. Keeping this journal has allowed to me flex what little research muscle I have for my selfish gain, but also allowed me to conserve precious memories that may have otherwise been forgotten. More importantly, it’s allowed me to dip my toes in the waters of grassroots, amateur waterfowl research. As useless as it is in the present, it feels significant, that sometime in the distant future a biologist will pour over the pages of my life and find a data point worth exploring. That all of that effort will be justified in the eyes of someone else, another waterfowl lover.
In the words of Reddit legend and agricultural master David Brandt,
“It ain’t much, but it’s honest work.”