Wildlife Watching
An Expert Discusses the Altered Path of Snowgeese
The recent appearance of migrating snowgeese above Salmon, Idaho, indicates a change in plans somewhere between Siberia and California. We think.By Gina Knudson, 11-22-10
These honks are not from your average Canadian geese. Photo by Flickr user Carly & Art.
News of temperatures dipping into the single digits this weekend sent me into scramble mode, moving garden hoses into the garage and plugging in the dogs’ heated water dish. I know the chores should have been done weeks ago, but I procrastinate. As I scurried about the backyard, a skyful of geese flew overhead, and from all the squawking, I got the impression maybe they had just caught wind of the weather report, too. “Three degrees by Sunday? Cripes, who said Idaho was far enough south?!” I was pretty sure I heard one of them honk.
But it wasn’t the familiar honk of our resident Canadian geese. “Snowgeese,” my husband informed me, matter-of-factly when I called him at work and urged him to get outside and take a look.
Another massive formation flew high overhead as my daughter Carly and I continued yard cleanup. “Snowgeese,” I told Carly matter-of-factly. “Flying south for winter.” She seemed duly impressed.
Understanding the way nature works gives one a certain kind of confidence. When I point out the Big Dipper to the children when we’re night swimming in the backyard hot tub, I sense the reassurance they feel, knowing their mother can safely navigate back to the house with the aid of this ancient wisdom.
“Now what are they doing?,” Carly inquired, as the geese took their sloppy “V” formation and banked to the west. In fact, “V” could have been the original idea, but maybe the geese lacked discipline or were new recruits or something because the “V” just as nearly resembled an “S” or a crowd of middle-schoolers doing the wave.
I realized as we watched most of the birds change direction while a few rebels retreated to their original northerly position that I had not the foggiest idea what we were witnessing. I have always wanted to be one of those people who could name any bird just from hearing the sound of its delicate wings flapping. Despite a library of bird books and very adequate binoculars, I only have about three birds in the bag—robin, bald eagle (provided it has an extremely white head) and osprey (provided it does not masquerade as an eagle or a robin).
“Why are some of them flying back that way?,” Carly asked, pointing toward Missoula.
To maintain an appearance of confidence, one has to answer quickly and with no wavering of the voice. “Someone forgot an iPod back at the pond,” I spouted, and seeing doubt creep into her eyes, I added, “Or maybe headphones or a charger.” This additional, quick level of detail was all that was needed to provide a semblance of credibility—for how many times did our family have to change our course for just those reasons?
The line of questioning ceased and we stood again quietly, watching the snowgeese flap wildly around our Salmon River valley like bats after a swarm of mosquitos.
Although I’d covered my ignorant tracks, by now my faith was shaken, my swagger gone. My natural knowledge was nonexistent.
I called my friend Hadley. Hadley is a retired wildlife biologist and the most avid birder I know. He’s even written a book, “Birds of East Central Idaho.” He has big glasses and a nice laugh and reminds me of a wise old owl.
I asked him if he had seen the display and, of course, he had. He confirmed this in the same manner as though I had just asked the Pope if His Holiness was celebrating Easter Sunday. I asked Hadley if he knew where the snowgeese were heading.
Hadley explained that some of the lesser snowgeese who nested on Wrangel Island in Siberia migrated through Salmon on the way to California and even as far south as the Gulf of Mexico. He knew that because when he was spying on them a few years back at our city’s wastewater treatment plant, a snowgoose’s pink collar with tracking numbers gave the whole flock away as Ruskies.
I pass this exciting news along to the 13-year-old Carly. “Why would they come to Salmon if they are trying to get away from the cold?” she asks incredulously. But Hadley has told me enough to make me dangerous. I smugly explain that fewer than 10 percent of the hundreds of thousands of migrating lesser snowgeese from Wrangel Island, Siberia, choose this rather avant-garde route (most migrate along the Pacific Coast).
“Why don’t they just live where it’s warm instead of flying back and forth?,” she continues to question me.
“They enjoy the cold,” I say. Then, to demonstrate to my daughter that she can trust her mother’s uncanny sense of wild things, I say even more assertively, “They are snowgeese. They live for the cold.”
“Well,” she reasoned, “it seems like they work pretty hard to get to where it’s warm. It doesn’t sound like they like the cold THAT much.”
I wasn’t ready to call Hadley again. I looked toward the sky.
“Look, Carly, a bald eagle!”
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I forgot. In addition to robin, eagle, and osprey, I can also recognize the call of the Jim Bird.
Flying south this winter?
Thanks for writing!
Gina
Years ago, I read about a guy who identified a neck tag on a Brant in Resurrection Bay in Alaska, where the Brant marshal to fly south, in one big straight line over the ocean toward San Diego Bay and Baja. Someone read the same neck tag 54 hours later in San Diego. So I got out the Loran C charts and the compass and charted the course and figured out the miles and time, and came up with 50 hours at 50 miles an hour. Two days and two nights, in winter, stormy seas, and a finite energy budget, and you are good to go. I could never again hunt them or even think about shooting one. And me, once an avid waterfowler. I could shoot a snow goose or twenty, because they are so numerous that they are devastating their nesting grounds by eating all the vegetation and changing the chemical nature of the soil. Or maybe they are beneficiaries of climate change. Still, their population is at an all time high, or was recently.
The most poignant migration story I witnessed was a flock of sandhills circling to gain elevation to clear a ridge on the west side of the Oregon Cascades in Douglas county. And they circled and one was under the group and try as it may, could not gain elevation, and then the group was over the ridge and gone south, and the straggler circled and dropped and dropped and set down in a little fen just as dusk came. I didn't think there was anyway for that bird to fly out of that wetland full of brush and trees. I walked out and my son, a half hour down the ridge behind me, called me on the radio and said he had cougar eyes following him about a hundred yards back, and I had to back track to meet my son who was mostly walking backwards up the abandoned skid road. Fun evening, I guess. Makes for conversation.
Great article--great writer--great family!
There was something terribly unfair about their "style" of hunting. The geese were at real disadvantage, being down in the depression and having no idea of their approach. And then to fire away with no thought to the fact that these geese would have such a had time flying off in that kind of wind. It was very sad to realize how cold hearted (and calculating) these guys were.