I only killed two birds....but one had a leg band and a neck band. I can't wait till saturday duck season opens in Ark.

Urdubob

Cool of all the hundreds of ducks and geese I have shot over the last 35 years I have yet to get one with a band. Dam still waiting.

Hi guys...

A few peeps on this forum have mentioned banded birds. What is it all about? I gather some bands get a cash prize?

Sounds interesting.

FB

I guess out of 500 ducks and geese over the past 15 years I have shot one banded blue wing teal, Three banded canada geese, and this snow.

I have also shot two banded Doves...kind of neat

urdubob

Fallow,

The U.S. Federal government thru the U.S.Geological Survey bands thousands of migratory birds every year. The band has a number inscribed on it. After the bird is released and enventually harvested by a hunter or found by an outdoor enthusiest, the finder of the band hopefully reports that number back to the U.S.G.S. The new data along with the data obtained at the time of banding allows much information to be learned about the birds on a species level, due to the numbers of birds banded and recovered. Biologists learn things such as mortality and migration patterns from this data.

The band system is not designed as a prize system, but bands in and of themselves are "prizes." Collecting a banded bird is a joyous event! Ducks and geese that are wearing "jewelery" are trophies!

To make myself a liar to an extent, I shot a mallard drake a couple weeks ago that had two leg bands. One was the standard U.S.G.S band with the number, but the duck also had a band that offered a $10 reward. Now, it is my opinion that this reward was not intended as a prize, but was intended as an incentive to report the band for the data collection.

As an example of data from these bands, this particular mallard drake was banded on August 10, 2003, eleven miles south of Seven Persons, Alberta, Canada and was a male mallard that was hatched in 2002 or earlier. When I reported the collection of the band by myself on November 04, 2003, seven miles south of Jackson, Wyoming, United States of America, by a hunter harvest, I completed the circle of information/data for this bird. This information gives the biologist lots of goodies to study! And it gave me two bands to put on my call lanyard and a very fine memory!

Bands are pretty rare...in over twenty years of waterfowl hunting, I have only shot two banded ducks and no banded geese. I have shot a LOT of ducks and geese...so the percentage is pretty low. Now, guys who have the abilty to hunt a lot more than I do, typically shoot a lot more bands...These friends of mine have call lanyards that are full of bands, and their bands number into the hundreds....but all of them are duck and goose hunting guides that hunt every day of the season, and they are in the heart of the Mississppi Flyway.....the largest migration route in North America. By geography, they are more likely to shoot a banded bird than I am, as I am not located on a major flyway anymore. I was surprised as hell to get the one I did the other day!

Hope this helps!