I met Lizzi who is a graduate assistant at LSU who oversees part of the Mottled Duck hen migration project. The duck was banded and transmitter attached to its back on August 22, 2017 near the Rockefeller Refuge, southwest Louisiana coastal zone. She told me Mottled ducks lose most of their flight feathers in late summer each year and they ride in a airboat in the marsh at night with a q-beam light to spot them. Once ducks are spotted they jump out and catch them because they are unable to fly well. She caught 50 hens in 2017 and 35 hens in 2018. The main purpose of the study is an attempt to monitor the travels of the Mottled Duck hen to see where they nest in spring.
The map shows the duck travels starting August 22,2017 from southwest Louisiana toward southeast Louisiana where she was taken December 1, 2018. Very interesting to see how she stayed along the coastline as most of them are thought to do.
Another neat thing Lizzi can see on her laptop at any time is all of her transmitter ducks with live data feed for their current locations within 30 meters.
I gave her the active transmitter and she gave me a dummy one to place on the duck for mounting. It took me 42 years to get the first transmitter, can I get another one?
Happy Hunting
To see Delta Duckman YouTube videos search “Delta Duckman Playlist” on YouTube…
