Suddenly-pooled playas mean wintering habitat; Take drakes, spare hens

TRY FOR THE DRAKES--There are significantly more drakes than hens across all duck species. That's reason enough for duck hunters to try harder to bag drakes and leave hens. This swarm of mallards descending toward the decoys contains mostly drakes and few hens, reason enough to bag the greenheads and leave the Susies.
TRY FOR THE DRAKES--There are significantly more drakes than hens across all duck species. That's reason enough for duck hunters to try harder to bag drakes and leave hens. This swarm of mallards descending toward the decoys contains mostly drakes and few hens, reason enough to bag the greenheads and leave the Susies.

While it may not literally have been raining ducks, geese, and sandhill cranes across the Panhandle and South Plains in the past week, it certainly was doing so figuratively. Finally, after virtually no rain all summer, El Nino generated on the High Plains.

In the space a few days, the region went from no wet playas to an abundance of them, and that means great wintering habitat is awaiting forthco…