But it's the quality of the habitat on those public areas that make them such duck magnets. And ducks are what they attract, mostly. Geese do use the areas, sometimes in abundance. But ducks are the big draw. The majority of the habitat contained in the national wildlife refuges and state wildlife management areas along the coast is brackish marsh.
Some areas hold salt marsh.
Others hold a bit of freshwater marsh. Oh, there's coastal prairie on some of the areas, and even some crop land-rice, mostly. But it's the marsh that makes the places so attractive to tens of thousands of wintering waterfowl. The dozen-plus tracts of public hunting lands on federal refuges and state wildlife management areas along the upper coast, from Sabine Pass to the mouth of the Guadalupe River, have been the destination of migrating waterfowl since the most recent ice age ended about 10,000 years ago. And the ponds and sloughs and shallow open lakes dotting the coastal marshes attract ducks by the thousands.