Visitors from far afield!

I see Canada Geese every day. Perhaps, like me, you assume that the flock you see at a given location is comprised of the same individuals. After all, how can you tell one goose from another? Still, I make it a point to look through the flock for any bird that stands out due to size or coloration or better yet, a band. On Friday, as I drove into Haverford College, two pieces of metal gleamed in the sunlight from the legs of two geese at the edge of the flock. I grabbed the scope, my assistant herder, Kristen, and spent 45 minutes before successfully reading the numbers on the bands of the two birds who were clearly in each other’s company. Because the band numbers were only 15 digits apart, I knew they had been banded together. I entered the numbers into the reportband.gov site and was immediately rewarded:

Band Number: 0998-46285 Species: CANADA GOOSE

Date banded: 08/02/2007

Banding Location: 12 W PAMIOK ISLAND, QUEBEC, CANADA

Age: HATCHED IN 2006 OR EARLIER Sex: MALE

Band Number: 0998-46270 Species: CANADA GOOSE

Date banded: 08/02/2007

Banding Location: 12 W PAMIOK ISLAND, QUEBEC, CANADA

Age: HATCHED IN 2006 OR EARLIER Sex: FEMALE

Wow! This must be a mated pair. A quick Google search revealed the location of the banding, about as far north on land as you could go, right up to the Labrador Sea. How cool! This pair, now at least 6 years old, really were Canadian. They tended to the edge of the flock. Were they just visiting and associating with a group of local birds? Was the entire flock from elsewhere? How long had these two been with the campus birds? So many more questions had to go unanswered.

Saturday, the weather was nice and too many human visitors roamed the campus. The geese spent most of their time in the water: no exposed legs for me to read. In the quiet of Sunday morning, the flock was once again on the lawn. I spied the two banded birds at the perimeter and then started searching through the remaining geese. Hooray; another one with a band! After nearly an hour of study, with the aid of one herding child, I had read the complete number of the upside-down band. The four-digit prefix hinted at a different origin. Back to technology for an answer:

Band Number: 1028-75828 Species: CANADA GOOSE

Date banded: 06/26/2006

Banding Location: DELAWARE BAY PARK, LAKE DARDANELLE, YELL COUNTY, ARKANSAS, USA

Age: HATCHED IN 2005 OR EARLIER Sex: FEMALE

Arkansas! Who would have thought? Two visitors from the north and now one with a southern drawl . . . in the same flock. This individual was not associating with any other banded bird, but, again, was more at the edge than in the middle of the flock. It did, however, work its way in two or three deep at times. I had barely written the number down and motioned to Kristen to come back toward me when loud honking filled the air. I turned to look at what was exciting the geese and spotted an adult Bald Eagle coming in over the pond, just above the treetops. The geese erupted in a whir of wings and headed straight for the safety of the pond. I guess they figured an eagle would be less likely to grab a goose from the water. The eagle turned and soared overhead, surveying the scene, then drifted off toward my house. By the time I had carried the scope down the street, it was circling over my yard, and a beautiful adult it was! I wondered where it had come from. It had abruptly ended my goose-watching, but I’ll be out looking another day, hoping to get some photos of banded geese, and perhaps find yet another visitor from far afield.

Sheryl