Wildlife personnel have been hard at work over the spring and summer to get tabs on the latest upland gamebird and waterfowl population sizes so that hunters can manage expectations heading into the fall. Some of those hunting seasons are open by now, and regardless of what you read online or in the coming paragraphs, I’m willing to bet you’re going to head out anyway.
Let’s start with our water birds. The large U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service breeding duck survey — completed in coordination with the Canadian Wildlife Service and other wildlife and conservation partners — once again released their survey numbers. Doug Larsen, writing for The Retriever Journal, said, “Biologists fly established routes, conduct ground observations, and use the gathered data to estimate populations across a vast breeding landscape. It is less like taking attendance and more like estimating the crowd at a football game, except the crowd has wings and keeps moving across Saskatchewan.”
This annual survey measures several waterfowl species, but the primary focus turns to 10 different duck species in the Prairie Pothole Region across the Dakotas, Great Plains, and prairie Canada. Those species include the mallard, gadwall, northern pintail, American wigeon, green-winged teal, blue-winged teal, northern shoveler, redhead, canvasback, and scaup (both greater and lesser). Notably — and important to Michigan, which lies outside of the survey area — wood ducks are absent from the survey, yet these ducks comprise a large part of Michigan waterfowl hunter bags, especially early in the season.
Okay, enough background; what are this year’s numbers? The overall “fall flight” revealed 33.44 million birds, a slight decline from last year’s 33.98 million.
Most important to hunters across the country is the mallard, which is down 11 percent to 5.859 million and down 26% from the long-term average, the lowest mallard estimate in 33 years. Also down 11 percent are pintails to 1.988 million, 48% below the long-term average. Both teal species are also in decline, as well as gadwalls and wigeon.
On the uptick are shovelers, which we don’t see too many of around here but maybe that will change; and the diving ducks of redheads, canvasbacks (showing a nice 13% increase), and scaup (also up 13%).
While Michigan falls outside of this traditional survey area, the USFWS does include information from other states that do their own breeding survey, and it details Michigan as experiencing a 255% increase in its breeding duck population, attributing this to a 40% increase in its wetland index this past spring compared to 2025, as well as all Great Lakes and main waterway system water levels. That type of increase still seems like maybe surveyors didn’t take the lens caps off their binoculars last year, but don’t ever count out the importance of habitat.
In addition to wood ducks, other prized duck species Michigan hunters should see this year but that aren’t among the 10 counted in the surveys include black ducks, goldeneyes, and buffleheads.
A number of wildlife management techniques, statistics, and correlations are used each year in the uplands to help estimate bird numbers, which aren’t as visible as waterfowl. These include harvest data from the previous year, breeding counts when birds can be observed, weather measurements, and habitat conditions. It’s all related, and significant weather events at certain times of the year can have an important impact to the upcoming fall numbers.
Dave Smith, writing for The Pointing Dog Journal, had this to say regarding the ruffed grouse status in Michigan: “The drumming survey results were up slightly from last year, according to Adam Bump, Michigan DNR. Bump reported that they anticipated a decline in the drumming rates since they are at the lower end of the population cycle, so this was unexpected and good news. He says the outlook for 2026 looks like it should be similar to last year, possibly slightly better. Given that the drumming count increase was quite small, he expects hunters to have a similar season as last year this fall.”
Many Michigan grouse hunters like to take a tour through the Lake States of Wisconsin and Minnesota, too, both of which have seen impressive grouse numbers recently. Although both have declined slightly from peaks in 2024, numbers are still higher compared to the other grouse destination states. A “Lake States Grouse Tour” from traveling wingshooters might be a common sight this year.
Michigan was third in woodcock harvest over the last couple of seasons, behind Wisconsin and Minnesota, and anecdotal evidence did see Michigan hunters reporting difficulty in finding birds, with an average flush rate of birds per hour (with a dog) of 1.8. Michigan DNR has a Ruffed Grouse and Woodcock Dashboard that tracks things like flush rates, reported harvest, maps, and more. However, it’s only as good as the self-reported data from hunters, so search online for this database, bookmark it, and help it become more robust for the future.
If you have time to explore, locate some of Michigan’s premier GEMS (Grouse Enhanced Management Sites) across the state. More information can be found on the “Where to Hunt” section of the DNR website. And finally, to read more in-depth information, visit the DNR website: www.michigan.gov/dnr/things-to-do/hunting. In addition to season dates and regulations, you’ll find maps and databases of public land open to hunting. If you plan to travel to a different state, all that forecast information can be found on that state’s wildlife agency website as well.
Please make sure to have a safe grouse and woodcock hunting season out there this year. While both seasons began a couple of days ago, remember that the woodcock season closes earlier (October 29) compared to grouse (Nov. 14; the grouse season reopens again from Dec. 1-Jan. 1).
Bird counts notwithstanding, the weather gets a vote, too. Larsen, in his same article about waterfowl populations, wrote, “When ducks are concentrated, hunting can be excellent even in a down year. When warm weather and pressure scatter or stall them, 33 million ducks can feel like about eleven, all of them sitting someplace you aren’t.”
In other words, when the weather’s right for whichever game you’re pursuing, it’s best to take those PTO days be out there.