I had been getting some good snow goose action and was sending texts to my hunting buddy, Larell. One that really made the guys drool was me holding a banded snow goose.
That night Larell text'd me wanting to hunt the next morning.
"You bet. I'll see you at O dark thirty," I replied back.
Larell was already at the blind and had the decoys hauled out. I could tell he was excited.
We made shooting hours with minutes to spare and then began the long day of waiting.
The Snows were being typical snow geese with most of them flying over squawking at us but totally ignoring our decoy spread.
It was nearly mid day when we had our first real flock decoy in. They started in the stratosphere and slowly circled their way into gun range.
"Let's let them make one more circle," I whispered to Larell. His dog, Charlie was shivering with excitement waiting for the shots to signal her burst from the blind.
The big flock slowly drifted around the spinning decoys and straight at the blind.
"Ok, when they get close... let's get them... remember to shoot your side of the flock, I'll shoot mine," I whispered. I think I was quivering as bad as Charlie.
"Now! Take 'em!" I shouted, rising out of the blind to shoot.
The flock was right in our face low. I picked a bird on my side and fired, to my surprise, it dropped. I picked another one and it also fell.
I could hear Larell blasting away on his side, but being on my nearly blind side I could not see if birds were dropping.
The flock quickly back peddled out of range and Larell and I were left high fiving and congratulating each other on a job well done.
Larell had a couple on his side and I had my two. We strolled out to help Charlie retrieve them.
I picked up my second bird and there on its leg was a metal band. My second banded bird of the season.
When Larell was back in the blind I showed him my treasure.
"No way!" he exclaimed, " The second one in two days for you! You lucky guy!"
"You can have it if you want it,'' I told him.
"No it was on your side of the flock, you got it," he gracefully replied.
I tried a couple more time during the day to have him take it home for his treasure chest, but he stuck to his guns and insisted I have it.
We had a good snow goose shoot that day and made it home late that night.
I raced for the computer to enter my goose band into the national band data base.
I filled out all the forms and gave the harvest information, location harvested condition of the bird, and condition of the band. some of that information is not asked, but I like to let the banding persons know the condition of the band to reward their hard work.
I clicked the mouse on "enter information" and sat back waiting for the results.
In minutes I was staring at a form I could hardly believe... it said:
"Lesser Snow Goose, hatched in 2011, female, banded on Wrangel Island Russia, Russia!"
I sat back stunned. I had no idea the Snow Geese migrated into Russia, let alone any banding program going on there.
I looked it up on Google Earth and learned it was above the Bering sea. A little island sitting in the Chukchi Sea hundreds of miles west of the coast of Alaska and our known place of Point Barrow Alaska
I crunched some numbers to see how far this bird had flown to make it to my hunting area.
If the goose flew from Wrangel Isand to Mexico, where a lot of geese winter it would have made a trip of about 4,300 miles, from Mexico City to Boise Idaho is about 1,900 miles.
Now, if I do my math correctly the goose hatched in 2011, meaning it made round trips from Russia to Mexico four times. A round trip from Russia to Mexico is about 8,600 miles, times four... a crazy 34,400 miles.
Watching the snow geese fly on a daily basis is also crazy. They lift from their night roosting ponds and spiral up into the high clouds then fly 30 to 50 miles out to the fields to feed. At about noon the birds come flying back at the super high elevations and back into the ponds to rest until about three in the evening where they repeat the same flights.
This back and forth flying happens every day of their lives.
No wonder these birds are so tough. If an athlete accomplished such a feat now days he would be on every news page in the country.
My respect for the little Snow Goose went right to the top!
Larell text'd me that night to say that he had reconsidered my offer of the band and would like it for a mount... but then he saw where it came from... "I guess you won't be giving that band up, will you," He text'd me.
"Not for a million bucks!" Well... maybe for a cool million!
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