The Mississippi Flyway Waterfowl WingBee…Not Just for Spelling!

Photos by Stefanie Fitzsimons

When I told people I would be attending the waterfowl WingBee last February the standard answer was, “You’re going to what?” At the time I could only answer that question partially. I would tell people I was going to be looking at waterfowl wings and tail feathers from birds harvested by hunters in the Mississippi Flyway. Other than that, I had no idea what I was getting myself in to. The experience ended up being one of my favorites in the 5 years I have worked for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR), and the knowledge and resources I have gained from the event are proving to be useful in my daily work.

Background

The Wing Survey, or officially called The Migratory Bird Parts Collection Survey, is a hunter-provided specimen collection survey that has been conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) since 1961. Before that reliable annual estimates of species, sex and age ratios in the waterfowl harvest at the national level was practically nonexistent.

The waterfowl Wing Survey was developed to collect such information from migratory bird hunters harvesting waterfowl in the four flyways found in the U.S.—Pacific, Central, Mississippi and Atlantic. Because waterfowl hunters were asked to provide a detailed record of each sample, it was also possible to estimate geographic and chronologic distribution of the harvest. Wing Survey results provided an annual index of recruitment and important information on variation in species, sex and age composition between flyways and individual states, and even parts of a state during different periods of a hunting season.

The WingBee

There are three different Wing Surveys based on species: 1) waterfowl, 2) mourning doves and 3) other migratory game birds (American woodcock, rails, snipe and band-tailed pigeons). Although the three surveys are similar, there are subtle differences in how wings and other feathers are classified. For example, wing feathers allow biologists to reliably determine age and sex ratios for ducks, but only age ratios for mourning doves, and only species for rails.

Each year the USFWS selects a random sample of registered migratory bird hunters throughout the U.S. to participate in Parts Collection Surveys. For the waterfowl wing survey, the USFWS sends willing participants multiple postage-paid envelopes and asks them to submit one wing from every duck they harvest, and the wing tips and tail feathers of every goose they harvest. Envelopes are collected throughout the entire hunting season and held until February when most waterfowl hunting seasons have ended. USFWS biologists try to sort the species of waterfowl that are collected, and in February, when natural resource agency representatives from states in the flyway gather for the WingBee, they arrive to piles of envelopes filled with wings. Nationwide, the waterfowl wing survey receives an average of 90,000 duck wings and 20,000 goose tails and wing tips each season.

For the Mississippi Flyway, the WingBee takes place at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale in late January or early February. IDNR typically sends two biologists to lend a hand with identification. As a newcomer to the event I sat at the “newbie table” where an expert sat to verify identifications and lower the margin of error for sex and age identification.

My table’s expert had been doing this for almost 50 years. We started with mallards and meticulously went through every way you decipher sex and age of the species based on look and color of the primary, secondary and tertiary feathers. After mallards, we moved to wood ducks, gadwall, pintail, scaup and many other species. We identified, sexed and aged wings for four days.

Over the first few days all the envelopes had been sorted by species, but by the end of the week all that remained were the wings submitted at the end of the hunting season and the ultimate test of our new new-found skills. Identifying species was usually easy but not always, especially if you got a muddy, mangled wing.

Why

Data from the WingBee provides demographic information about the Mississippi Flyway waterfowl population. Each piece of data collected plays a special role. Proper identification of species helps biologists estimate the percentage of the waterfowl population each species represents in the flyway harvest, and the hunter harvest pressure for each. Proper gender identification indicates the gender ratios of each duck species and helps in the understanding of future breeding success. For geese, the tails and wing tips only provide information on species and age but allows biologists to estimate the age ratios between adults and juveniles; an indication of the current year’s breeding success.

Collectively, this data helps sustain waterfowl populations long term and aids in deciding hunting seasons, bag limits and population management in the flyway.

---

Stephanie Fitzsimons began working with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources in 2011 as a Natural Heritage Resident, and is now with the Division of Wildlife Resources as the District Wildlife Biologist for Lake, McHenry and Kane counties.