High Plains Playas Duck Migration Forecast

Where High Plains Playas is

High Plains Playas is drawn from 46 counties in Texas: Andrews, Armstrong, Bailey, Briscoe, Carson, Castro, Childress, Cochran, Collingsworth, Crosby, Culberson, Dallam, Dawson, Deaf Smith, Donley, El Paso, Floyd, Gaines, Gray, Hale, Hall, Hansford, Hartley, Hemphill, Hockley, Hudspeth, Hutchinson, Lamb, Lipscomb, Loving, Lubbock, Lynn, Moore, Motley, Ochiltree, Oldham, Parmer, Potter, Randall, Roberts, Sherman, Swisher, Terry, Wheeler, Winkler and Yoakum. Those are the counties its shape on the DuckCast map is built from, so a hunter in any of them reads this region’s score.

When High Plains Playas peaks

DuckCast’s season model puts the pintail peak here around early December. High Plains Playas carries its own pintail timing rather than the statewide curve, because the season here runs on a different clock from the rest of the state. That is a modelled typical curve, not a prediction for any single year. The actual push depends on cold fronts and freeze-up upstream, which is what the daily score tracks. Always confirm season dates with the state wildlife agency, linked below.

Which birds the model expects in High Plains Playas

In DuckCast’s season model, the species that can score highest in High Plains Playas are blue-winged teal, mallards and pintails. Against the state as a whole, it expects fewer wigeon in High Plains Playas.

Those weights come from harvest records, survey counts and the kind of water, not from a count taken here each season. They cap how high each species’ score can climb; the weather still has to bring the birds.

What DuckCast watches upstream of High Plains Playas

3 upstream stations feed this region's freeze line, nearest first: Clovis, NM, about 95 miles west, Elk City, OK, about 130 miles east and Altus, OK, about 130 miles east. When those stations ice over, the score here starts climbing before anything changes in the local sky.

Radar over High Plains Playas

Each morning DuckCast reads the night’s NEXRAD data from KAMA, the National Weather Service radar at Amarillo, about 25 miles north of the region’s weather point. That is close enough for the radar to sample the air over the region itself. Radar sees every bird in the air, not only ducks, so it confirms or questions the score rather than moving it.

Locations stay generalized

Hunter reports for High Plains Playas are always shown at the region level. DuckCast never collects or displays exact coordinates, so filing a report here never burns a spot.