A lot of time passes in the duck blind, and you get to wondering where the birds are coming from and where they’re going.
It’s fascinating to watch huge flocks of waterfowl up in the sky flying somewhere. But where?
Most of the hunting season on the Snake River, you’ll see mostly mallards.
Then, on another weekend, bunches and bunches of wigeons have flown in.
WATCHING NORTHERNS
This time of the year, hunters, bird watchers and biologists say many of the wigeons and mallards that we’re seeing along Southwest Idaho rivers are “northerns” — birds that were hatched and spent their younger days in Canada and were driven south by bad winter weather.
They stop by Idaho on their way south, and maybe some stay locally if the winter weather is mild.
Well, the other day my son and I got a little glimpse into the life of a drake mallard. We bagged the mallard and noticed it wore a small ring-like band on its leg with a number.
The North American Bird Banding Program, which is under the general direction of the U.S. Geological Survey and the Canadian Wildlife Service, is in charge of banding birds, and it is an important study of the movement, survival and behavior of birds.
About 60 million birds representing hundreds of species have been banded in North America since 1904. About 4 million bands have been recovered and reported.
Information from banded birds is used to keep tabs on populations, set hunting rules and study the effects of environmental contaminants.
My son immediately got online with the information on the band. The mallard we got was banded on Aug. 24, 2008, at Cassils, Alberta.
Wow, that’s more than 700 miles away. Biologists have told me in the past that Alberta is one of the breadbaskets for Idaho ducks.
FIVE YEARS OLD
It is estimated that the duck hatched in 2007 or earlier. That bird was somewhere around 5 years old. You’ve got to wonder where the heck it went on its life journey.
The information can get you hooked on waterfowl migrations. Bands become collectibles with hunters. Each band is a memorable piece of the hunt, and scattergunners can put their bands on their duck and goose call lanyards or keep them in a special place with their antique decoy collections.
The banded mallard got me to thinking about other stories, so I went to the bird-banding website and Ducks Unlimited’s website to read more.
Here’s a crazy duck journey. A pintail banded on Sept. 2, 1940, in northern Alberta eluded hunters and everything else until January 1954, when it was shot near Macuspana, Tabasco, Mexico.
Ducks Unlimited said that considering the 3,000 miles between the band site and death, and figuring the bird made the two-way migration each year for 13 years, the pintail had probably logged nearly 80,000 migration miles during its lifetime.
OLD SWAN
A trumpeter swan banded in July 1957 in Montana was found dead in Idaho in April 1980. It was almost 24 years old.
I got a banded mallard once at Lake Lowell that was banded at the lake and maybe never left it. Or, maybe it left and returned each fall. I don’t know.
The cool thing now is that it’s a lot easier to report bird bands with the Internet. We had the information about our mallard in no time.
I remember when you had to send the information in and wait for the findings to be mailed to you.
To get more information about banding, go to pwrc.usgs.gov/bbl.
When you’re out hunting or bird-watching this winter, think about where ducks are coming from and going. They are truly migratory, and one of the things I love about waterfowl hunting is just watching waves and waves of ducks going over at sunset.
Zimo: 377-6445
Statesman outdoor writers Pete Zimowsky and Roger Phillips alternate columns on Sunday. Look for Roger next week.
