goose banding

swinginberrys

swinginberrys

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Spent the last couple days volunteering for the Canadian wildlife service banding geese. Been doing it for some time now and look forward to it every year. Last year we started double banding Canada's with one aluminum band and one stainless steel band. This is a longevity experiment as the aluminum bands tend to wear thin (sometimes quickly) depending on the environment the goose is living in. If you harvest bands please report them, it's great data that helps seasons. Some may argue otherwise but I'm a believer. I spend a lot of time and effort banding every year in the hopes that people will call them in when harvested. Please let other waterfowlers know about the double bands. These are NOT reward bands (for those of you unfamiliar with this double banded birds used to always be reward bands, if you want details just ask) if they harvest a doubleb nd report both of them. Thanks and good hunting!

 
Ducks and geese have in the past had reward bands put on them. They were double banded (aluminum band on each leg) one had the federal ID on it and the other would state reward with the dollar figure on it. This was done to promote band reports. When you harvested a duck or goose with one on it and reported it they would send you some coin.
As for what information the bands have.
The date the bird was banded. The ### of the bird, banding location, person banding and age of bird (banded as an adult or was to young to fly). They send you certificate of appreciation with all that information on it when you report a band.
If you find a band, see one at a park that you can get the numbers off or harvest it you can report it. It's neat stuff.
 
A couple of buddies got some of the dbl banded birds (stainless) from last year as some were put on in SW Ont. as well. Is the reward band a thing of the past swinginberrys or are they still putting a few rewards out each year???
 
Reward bands were put out as a means to determine ratios of reported vs unreported bands according to a good friend and skeet shooting buddy who was a retired biologist. Rewards were funded through donations by private sponsors. All the reward bands I have ever gotten came with a cheque with the name of the donor or donors trust on it.
BTW Swinginberry's I prefer debanding!!! ;) The guys you met me with at SLO in 2006 and I harvested 10 - $100 reward bands in two hunts one week apart at the same location a few years before we met you. Those bands brought us $1000 in US funds at a time when we got 0.40 on the dollar exchange. They bought us a nice spread of Real-Geese dekes which were the cutting edge at that time.
 
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ive only shot one banded bird. a drake mallard banded as a yearling??? or whatever its called, banded in north Dakota 13 years before I shot it in Manitoba. amazing aint it? I would report every one its super neat.

google some of the records on banded birds like geese over 30 years old and ducks banded in northern Alberta and shot in Cuba. or is it vise versa? still incredible. also I believe a very low percentage wise of banded birds are ever reported. which to me means probably a low percentage are ever shot.
 
swinginberrys, thank you for participating in the banding. While it has been years since that last time I shot a banded bird, the possibility of getting another and finding out the where and the when it was banded is something special.
It provides information for waterfowl management and is often a highlight of a day in the field.
 
My gawd Frank!!! That's a hell of a hunt! I've only ever seen two while hunting, first one I spotted flying in and I missed (my buddy didn't) second one was a clients bird. (That's a whole other story)

PL
The story behind the bird is the best part of the band while hunting. Pretty awesome knowing you were able to out wit an old bird that's seen it all.
Dfarmer
I enjoy the hands on conservation approach. I'm a member of DU as well as Delta but there's something about seeing first hand how you are helping out.
 
Here are some of the bands I have harvested over the years. I figure I have taken about double what you see here but I have given the rest away to other hunters who had joined us on our hunts. The 3 green coloured bands are reward bands I collected. 2 Black ducks and 1 Mallard. They were $100/ea.
I have a few bands that are kind of unusual in fact two are probably as rare as hens teeth at least here in Canada. The first is a duck band. It came off a drake mallard. I shot it in the New Liskeard, Ont. area in the mid 90's. It had a number and I.V.D.F.F stamped on it. It was quite apparently not an Avise bird band. It took alot of research as it was before I ever got on the internet but I finally got the info on it. The IVDFF stood for Illinois Valley Ducks For The Future. A private organisation in Illinois that releases pen raised mallards to supplement fall flights in years of low duck recruitment. It was the only banded bird ever reported to them from Canada. It was 3 years old. They had never had a band return north of Illinois, only south. It's the band where the lanyard V is located. Next if you go up the left side of the lanyard the second band you come to is not uncommon but its neat in that I got it on the second snow goose I shot on my first spring conservation hunt. I took that bird, a greater snow in Pierreville, QC with a fellow I know SB remembers well from Flocknockers known as Moyak(Claude). That bird was on it's 12th migration when I harvested it according to the banding info. The first band is a Jack miner duck band. Continuing up the left side you will see a metal band with a tab on the right side and a yellow and black tarsal band above it. Those bands were on a Canada Goose I harvested again in the New Liskeard, Ont. area. That set of bands is as rare as they will ever come. That bird was banded in Issungua Province in Greenland in 1997 and I took the bird in 2004, again in the New Liskeard, Ont. area. It took alot of research to track down info as the metal band known as a clipring was put there by a biologist on a banding expedition from Copenhagen, Denmark who was studying the effects of non-native Canada Geese on Greenlands native White-Front geese. The biologists did two banding expeditions 5 years apart ('92 &'97) banding a total of 125 geese. 6 bands had been recovered from the 1992 expedition. All 6 were recovered in New Brunswick in the fall of '92. Only 11 bands of both expeditions had been recovered by the time I reported mine, the remainder in the US. As well there had been 36 band sightings, bands reported from unharvested birds by bird watchers. Again all in the US in the New Jersey, Connecticut areas. Mine was the farthest west banding report ever received and the oldest ever recovered. The biologist I spoke with in Denmark said he was extremely excited by my recovery for that reason. He had led the both banding expeditions. In thanks he sent me a book on his 20 year studies of the interactions of the non-native Canadas and native White-Fronts in Greenland.
Aside from that I have all my USGS/CWS band certificates laminated in a three ring binder and have bands from a number of species including mallards, blacks, wood ducks, blue-wing teal, green-wing teal, ringneck duck and hooded merganser plus Canada and Snow Geese. I also have an orange neck collar from the very first Canada Goose I ever shot. It was banded along the James Bay coast.


 
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I have a lanyard that looks somewhat like "the spanks" ... alas, no reward or foreign bands. Several other loose bands in a drawer in the shop.
A Miner band, c. 1970 with scripture, used as far as I know, only at the Kingsville sanctuary, and several different coloured plastic bands, including a couple of brightly coloured plastic neck bands (Canadas) My "trophies" include a band from a canvasback, shot at Long Point, banded at Laurel, Maryland no less, from a drake that was 14 years old. The other was from a drake blue-winged teal, banded in Wynyard, Saskatchewan, harvested near Santa Clara, Cuba. Not horrendously far south, but quite a distance east ! We were talking about bands in the blind one day at Wolfe Island, and said to buddy I had never shot a banded bluebill. The next flock in, I took two, no bands, buddies lone kill from that group, you guessed it ... banded. To add insult to injury, he shoots another banded bluebill about 15 minutes later ! Go figure.

Very much enjoyed helping out MNR staff banding birds at Tiny Marsh on several occasions. If your'e a keen waterfowler, volunteer a little time to do so... very rewarding.
.... and make sure you report any band you take. So easy now with the Internet and/or 1-800 number.
 
In all my years when I hunted waterfowl I never shot one banded bird, and neither did any of my hunting partners. It was always a goal of mine to get one, but never happened.
 
I'd kind of like to see the bands tighter, and higher up, like around their necks.

Canada Geese. The screeching crack hoes of the wild kingdom!

Wood chipper the whole lot!

Cheers
Trev
 
Love hearing the band stories. It's unfortunate that idiots like Foils tarnishes the idea around bands. He (along with others) have made bands into a status symbol which is a huge lie. It doesn't take long talking with someone to know if their lanyard full of bands is a farce or if they've earned em all. Should start a thread for band stories...love hearing em....you boys have some real trophies there. Hopefully some day I'll add some cool stuff like those but I'm not in a high odds area for bands.

Frank, do you keep in touch with Claude? Wonder how he's keeping. Sad to loose touch with the ol FK gang.
I knew another lad that hunted a lot around new liskerd but I'm having a brain fart right now (night shift brains)
 
swinginberrys said:
That's the lad! Been a while since I saw any of those lads either. Man I miss the ol days. His thumb freaked me outt he first time I saw it. Lmao
Click to expand...

Yes it was a gnarly looking stump for sure, lol. Only guy I ever knew who had the ability to pick his nose with his toe! Laugh2

Haven't hunted with him since that hunt at SLO and don't miss hunting with him for even one minute. I do miss hunting in New Liskeard at times though. Mixed bag weekends of ducks, geese, grouse and walleye fishing were awesome.
 
It looses it's charm when people get full of themselves.
It always sounded like a pretty awesome spot to be an outdoors man for sure.
You coming back to Ontario any time?
 
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