Can You ID Ducks in the Air?

Midwest Flyways Podcast

Midwest Flyways

Sports, Wilderness

2.4 • 819 Ratings

🗓️ 7 May 2025

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week we wanted to answer a common listener question: when you’re just starting out, how do you ID birds in the air especially in low light situations? We discuss and consider all of the different things you can see and hear that will give you an indication of what birds are about to drop into the decoys. When you first start out all of the little things aren’t quite as obvious. With more time in the field, you start to notice little things and patterns that help you over time. Thanks so much for listening and be sure to subscribe and review New Waterfowl Film out now! Flooded Timber Duck Hunting in Arkansas Stay comfortable, dry and warm: First Lite (Code MWF20) Go to OnXHunt to be better prepared for your hunt: OnX Learn more about better ammo: Migra Ammunitions Weatherby Sorix: Weatherby Support Conservation: DU (Code: Flyways) Stop saying "Huh?" with better hearing protection: Soundgear Real American Light Beer: Outlaw Beer Live Free: Turtlebox Add motion to your spread: Flashback Better Merch: /SHOP

Transcript

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0:00.0	Guys, welcome to this week's 10 minute Tuesday. Today, I have been asked this question so many times.
0:07.0	I bet you it's probably been over 200 times in my lifetime of especially new hunters asking,
0:13.7	how do you know which bird is what when you are shooting? How can you identify that bird in the air,
0:19.5	especially in the low light? They're flying so
0:21.8	fast. I think the average duck is flying, what, 50 miles an hour? There's about, like, as they're
0:27.8	just flying about it. I think the fastest one was recorded at 92 miles an hour. So I know they do fly
0:33.2	really fast when they're migrating and stuff, but like there's, I would guess average speed is probably 20 to 30 they uh average 40 to 60 thank you wrong every duck yeah yeah mallards is around 40
0:45.8	pentails often reach 55 waza yeah and then you have the green and blue rockets which are they feel
0:52.8	quicker you know.
0:54.4	Yeah.
0:59.7	So anyway, and I want to go through some of the species that I feel like I can, uh, name out pretty quickly in the sky.
1:01.7	Obviously, I'm wrong sometimes.
1:04.9	Um, I feel like one of the easiest ones to identify is a pintail in the why I feel like a pintail is so easy to identify
1:13.2	is because they have such a long neck.
1:16.1	Yeah.
1:16.7	And no other duck has that long of a neck, period.
1:21.1	And the sprig is a pretty good giveaway.
1:23.3	Yeah, but a lot of times when we're shooting them in Minnesota,
1:25.7	it's not late season.
1:26.7	It's early season.
1:27.6	So you can't really just go off of the sprig.
1:29.3	So, like, I feel like the easiest identifier for a pintail is that long neck and how they fly.
	...

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