Counting Ducks with Alison Vilag

BirdNote^®

Counting Ducks with Alison Vilag

Written by Josephine McRobbie

This is BirdNote. 

Alison Vilag: So I get home, I make myself a cup of coffee, I enter my data. When I take a shower and I close my eyes so the shampoo doesn't get in, I'm still seeing lines of ducks flying behind my eyes.

    [Long-tailed Duck calls]
[Gentle gusts of wind]

Alison Vilag has worked for half a decade as a fall and spring waterbird counter at remote migration hotspots around Lake Superior. For weeks, every day from sunrise to nearly sunset, Alison is outside in frigid and volatile weather, identifying species from afar and tallying them with a clicker. 

Alison Vilag: You're just at the mercy of the elements and the wind. And it is exhausting to not only be out in brutal Lake Superior elements, but also paying attention all day, and searching for movement. 

    [Common Loon call and splash]

Bad weather days are more reason for her to come in than to call out.

Alison Vilag: We're studying ducks and loons - birds that are associated with water – and rain and bad weather doesn't really make them stop flying. In fact, some of my most amazing flights have happened during some of the most miserable weather conditions. 

    [Trumpeter Swan calls]

Working close to the elements puts Alison face-to-face with the reality of dwindling bird populations.

Alison Vilag: I think as a society, we want to tune things out. Paying attention to the things happening around us at times feels almost like a form of protest. And that's really what keeps me doing it, is just having that lessened separation between my world and the world at large. 

For BirdNote, I’m Josephine McRobbie.

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Senior Producer: John Kessler
Producer: Mark Bramhill
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Conor Gearin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Long-tailed Duck ML146400391 recorded by Carl & Judi Manning. Common Loon ML72745 recorded by David C. Evers. Trumpeter Swan ML54755451 recorded by Greg Bodker.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2023 BirdNote March 2023
Narrator: Josephine McRobbie

ID# vilaga-01-2023-03-13        vilaga-01