Faces of Fowl: Kelly Warren

Ryan Barnes for SPLIT REED

Not many people get to live a life where their entire world completely revolves around ducks and geese. Not only hunting them, but taking pictures of them, and even studying them and influencing guidelines about them. As much as the everyday waterfowler wishes that were their reality, for most, it isn’t. With Kelly Warren, however, it is. Kelly wears a few different hats; the first, as a waterfowl biologist for Ducks Unlimited as a day job. The Second, a waterfowl photographer as a hobby, and third, a waterfowl hunter as a passion. Split Reed had the chance to sit down and talk with Kelly to see how he’s able to juggle photography, hunting, and his job as a biologist with Ducks Unlimited, all connected with his love for chasing waterfowl.

“I grew up in the Willamette Valley near Corvallis, Oregon. My family has a history of being into wildlife so I didn’t really stand a chance (laughs)” Warren says, “My dad and my grandpa focused more on fisheries, and I moved more to the wildlife side” he says. Kelly spent the first few years of his life living remotely in Alaska while his dad worked as a fishery manager. Spending Springs and summers fishing in Alaska and the falls and winters hunting waterfowl on a property his grandfather purchased in the 1960’s that his family and friends managed down in Oregon. That led to the addiction of waterfowl hunting. “That’s what got it started for me. Waterfowl hunting is definitely number one in my blood”. After that, Kelly moved to Philomath, Oregon, and then Willamette Valley.

Kelly, his Dad, hunting partners, and wife manage that property to this day. “The management and work put into that property growing up is a part of who I am. It started a passion for habitat land management and waterfowl. That’s where I learned a lot from my family and hunting partners. Hunting in the fall and winter, and farming, growing crops, irrigation, placement of blinds, and making little tweaks to be more successful the following year. Hundreds of hours of work, blood and sweat which pays off in the fall. It’s also my place to decompress on the weekends, whether it’s work or hunting”, says Warren.

For anyone who has hunted in the Pacific Northwest, you know that there’s an identification requirement to hunt geese in that area. Because of the multiple different subspecies of Canada Geese that migrate through that area, or winter there. Seven to be exact. “We have a very complicated goose hunting zone in this area,” Warren affirms, “and that’s kind of where I got my start into the wildlife management side of things as well as the photography side of things. If you go online and look up the Identification Field Guide to Geese of the Willamette Valley, that’s something I did as an undergrad”. Kelly spent time working with the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife trying to determine where his niche was, and how he wanted to turn that interest into a career. All the while running at the collegiate level. Warren ran track and cross country as a kid, all the way through his career at Linfield College in Oregon. “I did a lot of hunting, and a lot of running and a little bit of school” Warren jokes.

“In 2004, my grandfather was diagnosed with cancer, and he handed me $1,000 and said ‘you have an eye for things’ and told me to go buy a camera,” Kelly says in response to how he got his start into photography. “That was a cool thing for me because he didn’t last much longer after that”. Warren talks about that passion and the drive allowing him to focus and get better when it comes to photography, or whatever craft it may be that he’s working on. “I’m a little Type A when it comes to learning things and getting better at them. Whether it’s sports, hunting, or photography, I always want to strive for improving or learning new things” he says. So for Warren, that’s where the photography seed was planted. It’s become a growing hobby for him since then.

After Linfield, Warren decided to pursue his Master’s degree at Portland State. While studying, he was able to go to Alaska and work with the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) doing surveys and helping with studies on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. Home to lots of rare and even endangered waterfowl species.  “If I didn’t already have a passion for waterfowl then, that definitely just made me have a stronger one after that experience,” says Warren. For three years he was able to follow waterfowl from their wintering grounds to their breeding grounds, and back. “There literally wasn’t any time of the year when we were separated,” Warren says. “It was such an amazing experience”.

After grad school, Warren mentions it was tough to get his feet underneath him with a secure job in natural resources. “It was not a good time to come out of grad school and try to get into natural resources. It took me a little while to get my feet planted. I worked for a state agency for a little while, and then I started working for a tribal entity after that”. Kelly talks about the uniqueness of working for a tribe and the difference between working for a government-run organization.  “When asked what species are important it’s ‘All of them! All species are important’, there’s not necessarily any restrictiveness, it’s more work done by what’s best for the air, the animals, the land, all that type of stuff.” Warren worked for that tribe for 6 and a half years. His primary job was to mitigate and purchase ground to repair for damage that had been done by dams placed on major rivers. Then, in August of 2018, Warren applied for the job with Ducks Unlimited and is now the Western-Oregon Regional Biologist for Ducks Unlimited. “It’s pretty much a dream job for me,” says Warren, who gets to work with waterfowl, improve habitat, work with other partners, and is in charge of a large region of the Pacific Flyway. Kelly’s main job is “project delivery”, which means it’s his job to identify habitats to improve and make more efficient for waterfowl. Kelly talks about the efforts of Ducks Unlimited to fight for everything from water for ducks and geese to be used properly for competing resources for proper habitat. All things that are growing concerns that Warren and Ducks Unlimited battle with to try and help the waterfowl that winter and migrate through Western Oregon and all throughout the Pacific Flyway.

Warren also makes mention of their local efforts to help with the local habitat and duck population by saying, “we have a lot of ‘boots on the ground’ type things going on. We’re working with our state partners, and our federal partners, non-governmental partners, and other tribes on doing restoration and project delivery”. Warren praises his team for the work they’re doing. “These are team projects, it’s my job to coordinate with the partners to get those projects delivered on time, and successfully, but I couldn’t do that without everyone else on the teams”. The thing that Kelly says he loves most about his job is the team and family approach that DU has on these projects. “We rely on our partners just as much as they rely on us,” says Warren, “that really is a good partnership for succeeding in projects”.

As was stated earlier, Warren wears a lot of hats. After duck season’s over, and when he’s not out working on project delivery for DU, he busts out the camera for some photography. “Photography is just a different type of hunting,”  he says. “You can go out to the marsh one day, and go out the next day, and see completely different things. It just pushes you to learn more about the birds. While you’re out there you may learn some significant things about waterfowl that you may not have known otherwise from just observing.” But it’s not just waterfowl photography for Kelly. “Anywhere I go my camera is in tow. It’s just an additional part of my body. Something I’ve learned is whenever you don’t have your camera, you’re going to miss something amazing”.  Warren mentions that he also enjoys archery hunting for big game, and when he goes on scouting trips, he brings his camera along as well. When asked if he would rather take a camera rather than his shotgun into the blind, Warren chuckled, “I’ll get there someday”, then continued on, “with hunting you go through all these different phases, and one thing I’m learning is that I’m more excited to see others be successful than I am myself as far as waterfowling. Additionally, for me, my dog is a big part of it. Taking out my friends, my family, and see them excel rather than myself. And I also want to make sure I’m getting my dog out there and getting her the work she needs and getting her as many opportunities as she can get. Shooting for me comes third, then comes photography”. However, Warren does say that in the future, he could see photography taking the place of shooting.

Photography didn’t just come overnight, though. It took time for Kelly. “I tried a whole bunch of different stuff. I tried different extenders and all sorts of different things like that and what I noticed is that my photos weren’t as good. And that wasn’t part of why I wanted to take pictures. The reason I wanted to photograph was the challenge of getting up close and getting the best photo possible. So I don’t use any extenders anymore. I’m a lot more strategic in how I take my photos. But that took a long time for me to learn.” he says.  When it came to learning the basic fundamentals, Warren says that he should have taken a class, but instead opted to try to figure it all out on his own. He says it took about 5 years to understand all the different aspects of waterfowl, and especially waterfowl in flight. “It’s super difficult to be successful and it takes a lot of practice and a lot of time,” says Warren.

When asked if being a photographer and being a biologist has made him a better waterfowl hunter, Warren responded, “Absolutely!” he continued on by stating, “it’s my job to study hatches, and populations, and patterns of all these different species, and one of the best things you can do as a hunter, is to try to learn everything you can about your quarry, and that’s what I do for my job. And not only for being more successful, but for having that additional amount of respect for the game that you hunt. So, learning all these little details are things that can allow you to be more successful long-term” Kelly says. He says that photography allows him to learn more about their behavior and where the birds are at one time of the year versus other times of the year. All things that allow him to be more effective in the field. Warren also talked about how having a background in land management has allowed him to go onto other properties and look at the land and choose areas that would be more fruitful as opposed to other areas that some might choose due to lack of experience. “Learning about the birds’ feeding patterns and about how birds avoid pressure can lead to you hunting during certain times of the day rather than other ” Kelly says. “If you hunt 25 days a year, it may take you 10 of those days to realize when the birds are flying and feeding, and trying to shift away from pressure. Some may eat later in the day to avoid that hunting pressure. It just takes some time to figure that out”

Between a life of wildlife biology, waterfowl photography, and waterfowl hunting, you could truly say that Kelly Warren has an addiction for ducks. He says he’s more apt now to let others shoot and to make sure others enjoy the success of killing ducks and geese, but that doesn’t stop him from putting the hammer down on the ducks when they come in. It’s definitely no question that Kelly Warren has a passion for waterfowl. Whether with a gun, with a camera, or making efforts to replenish the skies with more ducks and geese. There’s truly something admirable about someone who gets to devote their time and effort, day in and out, to do what they love. Kelly Warren has had a great impact on the world of waterfowling, from his efforts to protect and identify geese in the Pacific Northwest, to preserving wetlands in Western Oregon. All of which are greatly appreciated by waterfowlers across the country.