Who, Me? Buy a Duck Stamp?

Yes, Birder, you should buy a duck stamp each year. It only costs $15  and $0.98 of each dollar goes directly to purchasing, renting, or improving habitat for all kinds of migratory birds.

The new duck stamp came out June 27. This year the American Birding Society is offering them though their site, so they can document that birders are doing their part to preserve and increase habitat for ducks, geese, swans, warblers, bitterns, rails, waders, raptors, and other birds.  So please do your part and click here to purchase through the American Birding Association. ABA also carries a holder so you can add it to your key ring - this is a great way to show your friends that you are supporting the continued existence of birds.

You can also purchase them at National Wildlife Refuges, sporting goods stores, Walmart, and your local post office and save the shipping costs.

And there is another win for you.  Just present the stamp at any refuge that charges a fee and get in free. And remember all of them are birding hotspots. Buy it immediately and you'll get to use it for a full year.

Here are a few birds enjoying past contributions on lands that were bought or improved with Duck Stamp monies.  They include: Anahuac NWR, Sacramento Complex of NWR's and Malheur NWR.  I asked  Bill West, Refuge Manager,  if Red Rock Lakes had any recent new lands purchased with Duck Stamp monies.  He replied that part of the money used to purchase 1490 acres in the Alaska Basin last year came from the purchase of Duck Stamps.

White pelican on breeding grounds with coots at Malheur NWR

Roseate spoonbill

Black-necked stilt at Anahuac NWR 

Purple gallinule on breeding grounds at Anahuac NWR

Cinnamon teal pair and mallard wintering at Sacramento NWR

Snow and Ross's geese wintering at Sacramento NWR

Pie-billed grebe

Merlin  wintering at Sacramento NWR

Coot and cinnamon teal wintering at  Colusa NWR

American bittern

Northern pintail at Colusa NWR

Sandhill cranes on breeding grounds at Malheur NWR

Eared grebes on breeding grounds at Malheur

Yellow-headed blackbird on breeding grounds at Malheur NWR

Snowy egret

These stamps are also great collectibles.  You might like to buy more and keep them until they appreciate.

I'd love to hear back from you if you bought a duck stamp. Leave me a message in Comments. Thanks so much for helping to provide habitat for birds. And please pass the word.  And tell me your favorite birding refuge.

Postscript: The All About Birds Blog just wrote their own blog on reasons to buy a duck stamp.  More great information. 

Got Your Duck Stamp?

Do you think hunters are causing our wildlife to go extinct?  Think you should not have to pay to visit a wild place if you only hike, take pictures, or paddle there? Or do you feel that all of us, hunters, and non-hunters alike, should be working together to provide more habitat so more native plants and wildlife can live and enrich all our lives?

Snow geese in the Sacramento NWR

One of the ways people who love to be in  wild places can protect them and make them better for the native wildlife is to buy a duck stamp. Ninety-eight cents of every dollar goes directly either to purchase land or  to to improve habitat so more waterbirds can use a location.

And this acquisition and improvement doesn't JUST help waterfowl.  It also helps the wading birds like black-necked stilts and roseate spoonbills and the herons and egrets.  It  helps rails, common yellow throat warblers,  many other passerines, and the bald eagles and peregrine falcons. . And of course it helps lots of mammals too.

 

People were first connected to the lands in which they lived  by hunting and gathering. So they intimately knew the ways of the native plants and wildlife:  Which plants would be producing fruit or starch roots at what times of the year.  What plants were available to gather for medicines. Which animals would be gathering to feast on acorns or grass seeds. The migration habits of the bison and birds. People who became the first conservationists were mostly also hunters who knew, first-hand, that their game was getting harder and harder to find.

"So what's all this got to do with me?", you say.

 

 

You too, can buy a duck stamp each year to help rehabilitate wetlands, or buy new ones,  and  preserve the environment these birds need. You  can also  buy a junior duck stamp to help provide environmental education to young people so future generations will continue to value our wild places and wildlife. If you hunt waterfowl, you have to buy it but anyone can buy it to do their part each year towards providing habitat for wildlife.

But there's MORE.  With a current duck stamp, you can visit any National Wildlife Refuges that charges entry fees for free.  And both the duck stamps and the junior duck stamps are collectibles, so you can also buy many of them and then have them to sell at higher prices later or leave to your kids.

A view at Sacramento NWR where you can use your duck stamp in lieu of fees

O.K. already, I've convinced you.  But where can you now rush out to buy them?  You can order online, from a post office, from a sporting goods store, or your favorite refuge. Click here to find links and telephone numbers to order from home or at one of your local stops. (And now, you can also order them from ABA, together with a photo keyring to put them in.)

With all our help, our birds will fly forever.

To view all the duck stamps ever produced, click here.

 Note:  These pictures are from several NWR where I've worked.  All of the refuges have received funds from Duck Stamps to improve habitat or acquire new acreage.