2003 Webster Award 1st Place - Bradley Strobel

Reginald Howard Webster was a member of Delta’s Board of Trustees for 19 years and was a strong supporter of the student program during his term. He was a major influence on Delta during its formative years, and set it on a course to become the leading organization of its kind in North America. Every year at Delta, the Webster Foundation provides funding for several research assistants, giving them an unparalleled opportunity to gain research experience.

For the third year we held a writing competition in the name of R.H. Webster for research assistants. This annual competition is to encourage students to develop their communication abilities – a necessary skill to succeed as a biologist.

by Bradley N. Strobel

Finals were one short week ahead, and I was feverishly cramming knowledge into my head, and belongings into my vehicle, before the semester and my lease ended. I was anticipating the start of my summer job working for Delta Waterfowl Foundation. As a senior at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, I was one year shy of graduating with a Wildlife Ecology and Management degree. I had taken nearly every course offered that related to waterfowl ecology. With the combination of my schooling and eagerness to learn, I felt prepared for the summer ahead of me.

When I arrived in Egeland, North Dakota, I met the rest of the crew and learned more about the project and what my role would be. The study was designed to compare the nest success of ducks under “normal” predator levels and those presented with reduced predator levels. To locate the duck nests, we used a technique called “nest dragging”. Nest dragging consists of pulling a chain across an area of nesting cover. When the chain nears a duck the noise and bending grass prompts the hen to fly off the nest and reveal her hiding spot. After we found the eggs, we needed to determine how many days the hen had been incubating them. I learned that you could accurately age the embryo inside an egg, by looking through it. When light moves through a developing egg, it reveals characteristic light and dark areas unique to that incubation stage. This method is called “candling”.

Unfamiliar with these techniques, I eagerly watched for the first flush of the season. A hen blue-winged teal did not keep me waiting long. She rocketed from a small clump of grass in an overgrazed pasture, silhouetted against the rising sun as she sped out of sight. I was grinning widely as I marked the location of her nest to ensure that I would be able to find it when I returned later. My partner, an experienced dragger, carefully plucked an egg from the down filled nest. Peering through it, he professed it was freshly laid, and that the hen would surely lay more. Since she was the first bird of the season, and the first ever for me, I began wishing her just a bit more luck than I wished all the others.

Every seven days I returned to check on the nests we found that day. As I walked toward the clump of grass, I kept reminding myself that duck nests face very low success rates, and this nest probably would not survive long enough to hatch. I neared the nest and clapped my hands loudly to roust the hen. She sprung off the eggs and onto a nearby wetland, where she called loudly at me in an attempt to draw me away from the eggs. I raised an egg to the sun and candled it. I was amazed. I was able to see past a plain white shell, and tell what may be the future of this egg. Although the hen had not yet begun incubating, her clutch had reached its full size of eleven eggs. Again, I wished her luck and left.

Over the next two weeks, I checked scores of nests. Some eggs I candled did not display signature light and dark areas, but a duckling patiently waiting for its hatch day. Many carefully hidden nests fell victim to skunks, raccoons, and foxes. I felt sure that the teal nest, precariously placed in the open pasture, would suffer a similar fate. Nevertheless, she endured, and at my third check she was sitting on 11 eggs that were over two thirds of the way to hatching. Hopefully, with seven more days of incubation, there would no longer be 11 warm eggs stashed in a dry clump of grass, but 11 downy blue-winged teal gorging themselves on aquatic bugs.

Sometime in those next seven days, her luck ran out. When I arrived at the nest for the fifth time, I found it in shambles. I immediately began to investigate and record what had occurred. There was no sign that the hen had been killed, but I could not rule out that option either. That was when the grim reality of waterfowl nest success started to sink in. The affects of predators on waterfowl nests became more than a statistic in a report.

My mind raced as I finished checking the rest of the nearby nests. I kept thinking of candling as a method to see what lie ahead. I wondered what the future of waterfowl research and management would be. I began to think of what contributions I could make to waterfowl research and how my commitment could benefit ducks and duck hunters. Immediately, I began thinking of research topics that I could pursue after graduation.

It is hard to believe that one month ago I was packing my bags and studying for finals. I felt as though my interest in waterfowl and the courses I had taken had prepared me for the summer. Looking back, it was my willingness to learn which proved to be my greatest asset. The knowledge I gained in one month with Delta Waterfowl Foundation was an invaluable compliment to what I learned in the classroom. Combine that with exciting work and a North Dakota summer, and it created an experience I will not soon forget.