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The prospects should be good for goldeneye, bluebill and blacks in the Atlantic Flyway south of the border, from what we've been seeing in Nova Scotia the last couple weeks of the duck and goose season, which ends on our North Shore today.

The northern birds came late this season but it seems they're back in old-time numbers. This morning, blacks were wheeling into the tollers in numbers that guaranteed limits in as long as it took to load and shoot from our ice blinds.

Mr. Brown, by "blacks" do you mean "black ducks" as in the black phase of the mallard? Or is it another duck's regional name?

Happy New Years by the way, from sunny CA; we're getting lots of bluebills from the other side of Canada; I also saw a large flock of cinnamon teal yesterday--a duck with a great paint job (and afterburners--or do you call it "reheat" like the Brits?).

Yes, Mike, blacks are black ducks and there's some concern that interbreeding with mallards is weakening its genes; we consider the black duck to be the wariest of ducks around here, and tasty on the plate. Ten years ago mallards were commented on; now they're becoming common. Many flocks have one or two. And, season's greetings to you, too.

King, when you mentioned "ice- blinds" the picture that came to my ice-impoverished Southern mind was sheets of surface ice propped up some way as to form a blind to blend in perfectly with the snow. Seems like I have seen a picture of such a thing somewhere. Is that what you were referring to?...Geo

Black ducks (Richard Bishop's favorite bird to paint/draw) see Edgar M. Queeny's opus- "Prairie Wings" like Canada geese, are not sex/sexually distinguishable hens to drakes, as are common mallards- The only sure way to know if you have a black duck from a hen mallard in had (regardless of eclipse cycles) is the black will NOT have a white border around the purple wing(s) speculum(s)or is that speculai? RWTF

King,
I noted that very same thing here on Lake Ontario, all season long. Every time that I took the boat out of the harbour, I was surrounded by dabbling blacks, in large numbers, with noticeably few greenheads. Certainly a reversal of the status quo which existed even a couple of years ago.

HNY

RWTF, Anyone who can't tell a hen mallard from a black on the wing in decent light spends too much time on the keyboard and not enough time in the blind !

way to know if you have a black duck from a hen mallard in had

how does one aviod shooting hen blacks or hen mallards? here in the middle country we only get two hen mallards in the daily bag.

I never looked tween the legs tosee if the hens were drake blacks.... not likely to either.

best of the new year mr. King.

Jameister

There's nothing impoverished about your imagination, George. That's it exactly: sheets of ice three or four inches thick propped up on their edges. We were lucky yesterday because the ice was thick enough to bear our weight as we crossed frozen salt water behind a stormy beach to get to a run or lead---a narrow strip 15 metres by 100 metres of shallow marshy water kept open by wind and tide.

The ice for the blind, nearer the shore and thinner from a previous cold spell, was tipped into place easily near the edge of the open water. White gunning smock, 1911 A&N 12ga IC/IM, Kent 2 1/2-inch TM No. 5s, Jake, my five-year-old black Lab, complete your picture. One scenario was a pair of blacks wheeling three circuits within easy gunshot above my buddy crotch-deep re-setting decoys. I wasn't fast enough pulling out my camera.

Wish all of you gunners were there!

I wish I'D been there! Thanks for sharing the hunt with me anyway...Geo