Live Migration Report
A current, near-real-time read on the flight — pulled from state DNR, USFWS, and Ducks Unlimited migration reports. Pick your flyway to see where the birds are, what's moving, and the weather driving it right now.
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The Four Flyways
North America's ducks and geese follow four broad migration corridors from the northern breeding grounds to their wintering areas. Find your flyway to understand where your birds come from and where they're headed.
Pacific Flyway
WA, OR, CA, ID, NV, UT, AZ, and parts of MT, WY, CO, NM
Runs from Alaska and western Canada down through the Central Valley of California. Big wintering grounds in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys, the Klamath Basin, and the Salton Sea.
Key species: Mallard, pintail, wigeon, cackling geese, snow geese, specklebelly
Peak: Late October – December
Central Flyway
MT, ND, SD, NE, KS, OK, TX and parts of WY, CO, NM
Funnels prairie-pothole ducks and geese south through the Dakotas and Great Plains to wintering grounds along the Texas Gulf Coast and playa lakes.
Key species: Mallard, pintail, teal, canvasback, Canada & snow geese, sandhill crane
Peak: November – December
Mississippi Flyway
MN, WI, IA, IL, IN, OH, MO, KY, TN, AR, MS, LA, AL and parts of the Great Lakes
The busiest flyway in North America. The Mississippi River corridor and the flooded rice and timber of Arkansas and Louisiana hold enormous numbers of mallards each winter.
Key species: Mallard, gadwall, wood duck, teal, Canada geese, specklebelly
Peak: Late November – January
Atlantic Flyway
ME, NH, VT, MA, NY, PA, NJ, MD, DE, VA, NC, SC, GA, FL, WV
Hugs the East Coast from the Canadian Maritimes and Chesapeake Bay down to the Carolinas and Florida. Strong for black ducks, brant, sea ducks, and Atlantic Population Canada geese.
Key species: Black duck, mallard, brant, wood duck, Canada geese, sea ducks
Peak: November – January
Fall Migration Timeline
Migration is driven by weather, not the calendar — but the flight generally rolls south on this schedule. A hard cold front can move birds a week or two early.
Blue-winged teal are among the first to move, sliding south well ahead of the main flight. Many states open a September teal season to catch this early push.
Locals mix with the first migrators. Sharp cold fronts and north winds start bumping wood ducks, gadwall, wigeon, and early mallards down out of Canada and the northern states.
The main flight. Hard freezes and snow up north force big waves of mallards, pintail, and geese south. This is when a single front can dump fresh birds into a marsh overnight.
Birds concentrate on the last open water and food in wintering grounds. Late-season freeze-ups push the final, hardiest mallards and geese to the southern end of each flyway.
Birds reverse the route back to the prairie-pothole breeding grounds. Snow goose spring conservation seasons target the huge northbound light-goose flocks.
Want to know which days the birds will actually fly? The Waterfowl Movement Forecast scores fronts, wind, and freeze-ups for your exact location.
2026 Breeding Population Numbers
Total-duck breeding-population estimate from the traditional survey area (Prairie Pothole & boreal). Figures are in millions of birds. Green bars are above the long-term average; amber bars are below it.
2% below 2025 · 6% below long-term average
14% above 2025 · 9% below long-term average
Lowest estimate since 1993 · 26% below average
Source: USFWS / CWS Waterfowl Breeding Population & Habitat Survey (2026 report). The traditional survey was not flown in 2020–2021.
5.86M in 2026 · 26% below long-term average
4.16M in 2026 · Near the long-term average
3.96M in 2026 · 22% below long-term average
3.29M in 2026 · Above the long-term average
2.35M in 2026 · Above the long-term average
1.99M in 2026 · 48% below long-term average
Still above the long-term average
Still above the long-term average
0.931M in 2026 · 26% above long-term average
0.782M in 2026 · 32% above long-term average
Eastern Survey Area
If you hunt the Atlantic Flyway, these are your birds — black ducks, eastern mallards, and divers counted separately from the prairie survey.
The eastern survey area covers eastern Canada and the northeastern U.S. from Virginia to Maine. 2026 results were essentially unchanged from 2025.
Source: 2026 USFWS Waterfowl Population Status report, eastern survey area.
Habitat & Fall Flight Outlook
Spring breeding numbers are only half the story — the ducks hatched after the survey are what fill the fall flight. Here's what the breeding grounds looked like this year.
Prairie Canada pond counts jumped 29% on above-average spring rain, while U.S. prairie ponds fell 10% — the water shifted north this year.
Field reports rated brood-rearing wetlands good to excellent in parts of the prairies, pointing to better duck production than the last few years.
North Dakota's July brood survey showed a 55% increase in broods, and the state alone is projected to produce a fall flight of about 4 million ducks — more than 2024 or 2025.
Breeding mallards stayed unusually far north, with big declines in the Dakotas and Montana and better numbers in the parkland and boreal forest.
What It Means for Your Season
How this year's survey translates into season length, bag limits, and pintail and teal rules.
Survey numbers feed the USFWS Adaptive Harvest Management process, which sets each flyway's season length and limits. Based on the 2026 report, the Service is expected to recommend:
- Liberal duck-season frameworks in all four flyways for 2027–2028.
- A three-pintail daily bag limit under the interim pintail harvest strategy.
- A nine-day September teal season in the early-teal states.
- A three-mallard bag limit with no sex restriction for Atlantic Flyway hunters, under the new eastern mallard strategy.
Frameworks are federal ceilings — your state DNR sets the actual dates and limits inside them, so always confirm with your state's regulations before you hunt.
Official Sources & Live Migration Maps
The numbers above come from federal surveys that set every state's season frameworks. Dig into the primary sources for the latest counts and near-real-time reports.
The annual federal report behind season frameworks and bag limits.
How survey numbers translate into duck-season length and limits.
Crowd-sourced, near-real-time reports of where the birds are.
DU's plain-English breakdown of this year's breeding-population survey.
Species-by-species analysis of the survey from Delta's scientists.
Crew-by-crew habitat notes from the breeding grounds this spring.
Hunting a specific state? Check the state hunting resources for official DNR season dates and regulations.