THE AUDUBON BULLETIN 43 
\W hat Is the A\nswer ° 
By JAMES 8. WHITE 
The years of 1930 and 1931 have not only made history from the 
weatherman’s standpoint, but from the ornithologist’s as well. When, 
in recent times have we, in so short a time, experienced such varied and 
drastic reversals of weather form? ‘lhe Summer droughts of these years 
have caused incalculable damage to certain species of swamp breeding birds. 
Much has been said and written, as well as considerable time and 
money have been spent in making investigations regarding the welfare of our 
ducks. “he outcome of these investigations were indeed startling, and 
the first move to help them was made by the United States Biological 
Survey, resulting in the shortening of the open shooting season to one 
month. 
In spite of many newspaper reports to the contrary, ducks were not 
plentiful this year. However, there was no doubt that concentration of 
flocks occurred in and around suitable feeding and resting grounds because 
of the scarcity of such places. With the thousands of small farm ponds, 
lakes, creeks, and marshes dried to a crisp, it was only to be expected that 
such concentration would occur around suitable water. I have before me 
data which I believe to be fairly accurate, and if such is the case, the water 
birds have been dealt a blow that only years of good breeding conditions 
and conservation can heal. Some of this data, relating to percentages ot 
important wildfowl breeding ranges in North America affected by the 
drought this year, averages as follows: 3 
75 %—Canvasback, Gadwall, Redhead and Ruddy. 
60%—Shoveller. 
40%—Baldpate, Blue-winged Teal, Buffle-head, Mallard, Pintail, 
and Wood Duck. 
35% —Green-winged Teal and Lesser Scaup. 
10%—American Golden-eye, Barrow’s Golden-eye and White- 
winged Scoter. 
None—American Scoter, Black Duck, Greater Scaup, Old-squaw 
and Surf Scoter. 
After reading the above tables, try to visualize the vast number of 
other species that were also deprived of suitable nesting conditions, and of 
the millions of fledgelings that must have perished from want of water. 
Most of my field observations are confined to swampy and wet areas, 
and I must say that this past Fall migration was disappointing to me 
where the water and swamp birds were concerned, and I am anxiously 
awaiting the Spring migration to see what that will tell us about these 
other swamp breeding birds, such as rails, snipe, herons, certain sparrows, 
etc.—certainly they also have had a severe setback in these years. 
