Bird Watching: "On The Waterfront" - Part 2, 1 by linthicum

linthicum wrote:
After a short hiatus, I thought I would revive this thread once again. Last weekend, I went to Bombay Hook to look for the American Avocet and to watch the Greater Snow Geese. The weather was not very good. Earlier in the year, I found myself fascinated with searching for tagged Snow Geese among the thousands around me and then research where they were tagged. It seems that most of them come from the same general area north of Quebec, Canada.

The masses haven't arrived yet. The Greater Snow Goose population has grown considerably and efforts are underway to reduce the overall population. Looking through my photos from last Sunday, I only found one goose with a neck collar - RM59.

I reported the sighting and immediately found out that it was an adult female that was tagged on Bylot Island in August, 2009. Bylot Island lies off the northern end of Baffin Island in Nunavut Territory, Canada, about 2,300 miles from where I sighted it. Bylot Island is one of the largest uninhabited islands in the world but serves as a breeding grounds for up to 80,000 Snow Geese.

Here is an in-flight, not so good, photo of RM59.