I've been a fan of good buttermilk pancakes since I was old enough to sit up at the breakfast table, so I suppose it's no surprise that over the years, I've gotten pretty good at making my own. The recipe I use these days is out of an old Farm Journal cookbook, a genuine, from-scratch batter with a few embellishments of my own that makes a pancake you've got to pin down with a fork if you don't want it to float away.

Late last summer, we were organizing for a backpack trip in the Beartooth Mountains of Montana, and I set my heart on having pancakes for one breakfast. I was fussing with egg substitutes and dried buttermilk, trying to hit on a combination I could use right out of a Ziploc bag, when my wife suggested one of the store-bought mixes. I wrinkled my nose. "Well," she suggested with her usual maddening good sense, "Why don't you get a bag of it and try it here at home first?"

So I did. And as much as it pains me to admit it, the off-the-shelf mix is surprisingly good -- not quite as good as mine, of course, but more than passable. "Just add water," the bag says, and the result really is worth eating, especially when it's served with a little maple syrup and some huckleberries on the shore of a high-country lake.

I was perusing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service report on the population status of North American waterfowl the other day, and Krusteaz pancakes came to mind. For nearly 25 years, the federal government has funded a cluster of programs that have established large areas of more-or-less permanent upland cover across the northern prairie.

The bulk of this cover has been established under the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), but other programs like the Grassland Reserve, the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP), Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) have also made important contributions to habitat in pothole country. Together, this group of federal initiatives makes up the conservation title of what is commonly referred to as "the Farm Bill." In its current incarnation, "the Farm Bill" is actually The Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008.

Over the past quarter century, programs authorized under the conservation title of the Farm Bill have made a major difference for most of our waterfowl. We don't call them prairie ducks for nothing -- they prefer to nest in grass, sometimes a mile or more from the nearest water. The larger the area of grass, the more likely they are to keep their eggs and ducklings safe from predators. If you're trying to raise ducks, the key ingredient is a lot of grass. After that, all you have to do is add water.

Last spring, Mother Nature added plenty of water on the northern prairies. May pond counts were up 45 percent from last year and more than 30 percent above the long-term average. The ducks responded. Total duck numbers are up 13 percent from 2008 and 25 percent above the long-term average.

We cannot do much to influence the amount of rain and snow that falls in the duck factory. The best we can do is establish a good habitat base and hope for moisture. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and state wildlife agencies do what they can to protect and expand wetlands and associated upland cover, largely with funds provided by hunters through the sale of hunting licenses and duck stamps, but in the end, that revenue stream isn't up to the job of maintaining American ducks.