Ah, the Mottled Duck. The mottled duck is the only duck that is adapted to breed in the marshes of the south. The Mottled Duck is in danger of displacement because of loss of coastal marshes as well as competition from introduced Mallard species. Well Ducks Unlimited was interested in the possibility of these ducks nesting on coastal marsh terraces that DU built to help stop saltwater intrusion into the marshes.
To do this Du gave me the opportunity to participate in a "Duck Hunt". I had the opportunity to ride in an air boat out to the terraces and swing PVC pipe at the weeds in hopes of flushing out some Mottled ducks and then locating and documenting the nests. 
We left late Sunday night and headed to Lafayette, Louisiana because we had an early start on Monday. Monday morning we met at the Estuarine Habitats and Coastal Fisheries Center at the University of Louisiana Lafayette to meet the rest of the crew from the USGS, Louisiana Dept of Wildlife, DU, Texas A&M, and LSU and head south to Pecan Island on the coast of Louisiana.
This is the satellite imagery of the study site.
We made the drive and I got to see some wonderful parts of Louisiana that I had never seen before. When we got there we loaded up onto the air boats and took off. "Taking off" in air boat is easy the "air" in air boat must mean airplane, because an air boat is an airplane without wings that drives backwards. They are so loud that I wore ear plugs and a headset. The boats went over the land just as easy as water. The boats preceded to drop us off on the terraces so we could swing our sticks. We did manage to locate about three live nests, one recently hatched nest, as well as a handful of deprecated eggs.
It was a lot of fun. I forgot how much I enjoyed the field work. Hopfuly I will get to do a little more duck hunting in the future.
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