![population count of the mountain duck population count of the mountain duck](https://www.parhlo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/white_headed_duck2.jpg)
The forest soils are stony and the landscape is rolling, with numerous ponds and creek channels.
![population count of the mountain duck population count of the mountain duck](https://i.etsystatic.com/iap/712627/2631918349/iap_300x300.2631918349_33nanjji.jpg)
The area represents the southern limit of the boreal forest in its transition zone to aspen parkland. The flat bottom of Lake Agassiz now forms the Manitoba lowlands, and it is from these lowlands that the vertical relief of the Duck Mountains is most impressive (indeed, really the only place from which it is even readily noticeable), as the mountains provide an obvious contrast to the monotonous flat of Manitoba's prairie. The post-ice age Duck Mountains then formed the western shore of Lake Agassiz. Glacial scouring exaggerated the vertical relief of the mountains, and the glaciers deposited thick beds of glacial till that now overlay the bedrock. The vertical relief of the mountains is the result of erosion of the Cretaceous shale by the ancestral (pre Ice Age) Red River to the east, and by the ancestral Assiniboine River to the west, and so the Duck Mountain's apparent height is the result of a lowering of the surrounding prairie, rather than any orogen. Their underlying rocks are Cretaceous shales and (below that) sandstone, which overlie deeper deposits of Devonian limestone, which in turn overlie Precambrian granite. Geologically, the Duck Mountains are part of the Manitoba Escarpment, along with the Turtle Mountains, the Riding Mountains, and the Porcupine Hills. The highest point of the Duck Mountains is Baldy Mountain, which is also the highest point in Manitoba. They are some 200m higher than the floor of the Assiniboine River valley to the west, and some 400m higher than the Manitoba lowlands. The Duck Mountains are a rise of forested (formerly glaciated) land between the Saskatchewan prairie to the west and the Manitoba lowlands to the east. It is not to be confused with Saskatchewan's Duck Mountain Provincial Park, located just across the Manitoba/Saskatchewan boundary. Duck Mountain Provincial Park is a 600 square kilometre forest in western Manitoba.