WATERFOWLING -- Impressive numbers of ducks were tallied in a recent winter waterfowl survey for the North Columbia Basin, which includes all important Columbia River pools, large lakes, wasteways, reserves, and Columbia National Wildlife Refuge waters around Grant, Douglas and Adams Counties.

During this two-day flight, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists documented more than 268,000 waterfowl, including just under 200,000 mallards (4% of which were on the Columbia River), close to 30,000 diving ducks (78% scaup), nearly 9,000 common mergansers (most at Moses Lake and Potholes Reservoir), and about 10,000 Canada geese  even though this wetland-focused survey misses most Canada geese which field-feed during much of the day.

Most of the waterfowl on the Desert and Potholes units of the Columbia Basin Wildlife Area were concentrated in Winchester Reserve, which had nearly 23,000 mallards.

Frenchmen and Potholes Reserves had about 4,000-5,000 mallards each.

Though the numbers in the Columbia Basin Wildlife Area portion were low, the overall mallard count was very encouraging. The warming that has occurred helped produce better waterfowl hunting as these concentrations of birds look to disperse as water bodies re-open.