Rick Adair Photography

Ya got me.

On a duck hunt near Edmonton, Alberta, our group of five was taking its time to reach our limit of 40 mallards—one goal being to not harvest a single hen. It wasn’t as easy as it sounds, as each hunter had to be conscious of hens in the line of fire behind drakes. So the hunt took longer, giving us more time to watch the skies. Black Dog Outfitters guide Steve Moore and hunter Skipper Dickson were watching an area to the east. “I kept seeing clouds of ducks like I had never seen,” Dickson said later. “I looked at Steve, and he looked at me, smiled and took off to find the magic spot.” Steve eventually determined where the birds were setting in, called the landowner and obtained permission to hunt. The next day, feeling certain of success, our group and the other at the lodge set decoys, erected blinds, loaded up and then . . . crickets. We waited and waited. We never had experienced a hunt in this region when the ducks were not landing in the decoys as we were setting them. Long after sunrise Steve and Skipper thought they were “about to be hung by 12 hunters who hadn’t fired a shot.” But then, like the day before, the ducks appeared on the horizon. Wave after wave began pouring into the small pond in the huge canola field on the vast Canadian prairie. Steve and Skipper finally could relax. “We went from heels to heroes,” Skipper said. ~ RICK ADAIR

Duck river in the sky. Alberta, CA

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Maroon Bells, Aspen, CO

Aspens in Aspen

Everhart's Wilderness Lodge 20th Annual
Youth Waterfowl Clinic & Hunt
Retriever Demonstration
Waterfowl Identification
Sporting Clays
Waterfowl Calling Techniques
Shotgun Patterning & Subtending
Duck Calling Contest
Unfortunately the last, BUT, neighbors will continue the event next year.

Field & Stream First Shot Oct 2014

Peyton Cunningham, a volunteer with an annual bird banding project in winter waterfowl feeding areas, placed a greenwing hen with six males on the passenger seat of a truck to get warm. “Volunteers shot a giant net out of two cannons over the water, quickly collected the teal, and put them in cages before they got too cold,” explains photographer Rick Adair. If the birds can't ruffle their feathers under the net, they're less insulated against low temperatures. “About 25 birds did start to get lethargic, so we put them in the truck with the heat on, and they huddled together.” Normally, they would be released within 10 minutes, but these teal were monitored until the end of the day, when they all flew away apparently healthy.“Most banding is done on spring breeding grounds when teal are young, and we're trying to catch them on winter feeding grounds after they've been shot at for months,” says project leader and federal banding permit holder Skipper Dickson, who was named an F&S Hero of Conservation in 2012 for his volunteerism in the prairie-pothole region. “We've banded 3,000 birds since 2003 and learned a lot about their survival.” Copyright 2013 Adair Photography Inc. 417-848-0070