re: Do ducks really come down when a cold front passes?

Recently Cohen wildlife lab has put GPS Backpacks on Mallards and they can track their travel by the hour. Last year during the "Polar Vortex" at Xmas they put great attention into tracking those birds. They were surprised to find that the vast majority, nearly all of those birds stayed local and just made more of an effort to find open water in the area before resorting south. Often times the reason for shooting more birds initially on a freeze out is that the normal dabbling areas where birds are "hiding" get frozen out, then those birds have to venture out to new areas to find feed and open water. New areas=dumb ducks, the ducks don't know where all the blinds are, where the stale decoys are, and have less options for available water and feed(CALORIES!), making them more committal and risky. With those factors they seem to get into places that they don't normally frequent, even if its just 4-5 miles away from their usual "hiding/rest" spot.

I've hunted the continental freeze line and traveled with the birds up and down the continent. You would be surprised at how minimally short term weather changes truly impact their "push" them south.