BLING!
Mark
11/11/06 7:48pm
For 33 years I have hunted ducks and have NEVER killed a banded bird. Oh sure, birds have been killed all around me with bands, but never by me. I once tripled on a flock of 6 birds and the guy with me shot one bird. His was banded!
Well today it was my turn. My son shot at this bird today and missed it. On the back up shot I folded him. Sent the dog, Cooper delivers to hand and low and behold, the bird is banded! Thirty three years and the quest is over!
Well today it was my turn. My son shot at this bird today and missed it. On the back up shot I folded him. Sent the dog, Cooper delivers to hand and low and behold, the bird is banded! Thirty three years and the quest is over!
18,900
I hope you are going to have him mounted.
Here's the pose I want...
I may have to get one of those done myself someday.
He sits quietly in the boat (after the first bird anyways), he marks birds with his ears since he's usually hidden in the reeds, he's rock steady unitl released and he delivers to hand. He's also trained to handle to blinds and he doesn't give up on diving cripples.
I've also got a 2yr old black that's still training. He hasn't waterfowl hunted yet, but I've taken him on a few chukar and quail hunts. He should be ready for ducks by next season. He's probably erady now, but I don't want to instill any bad habits so I'm going to wait one more season.
He's in excellent condition. Both of my dogs are fit and trim, and we keep them right about 65 to 68 lbs and they get a lot of exercise.
Here's the finished mount...
Very cool!
if i were to take an honest shot at the average birds per band[ and i deffenatly think it depends on where you mostly hunt at] but my guess would be some where around 1 in every 750 birds has a band on it.
maybe AGC will get some real numbers :)) i would really like to see what the odds are!
However, if you take the number of mallards that were banded by Ducks Unlimited over the last three years compared to the estimated population of mallards in North America last year you get a .26% chance of bagging one of these banded birds.
From what I gather from Mark's post, his bird was banded by the USGS and thus far I have not been able to locate the number of banded birds by them. I'll keep looking.
I will say this...there are a number of organizations that band birds. Therefore, I will have to add up all the numbers from each organization to get the answer. I'm up for the challenge though...but give me a day or two.
Ultimately though, it's an awesome bird, a GREAT mount, and a trophy non-the-less. I would estimate from what I've read thus far that the odds are between 5% and 10% that you'll bag a bird banded by any one of the various organizations. CONGRATS MARK!
Todd is without a doubt one of the best bird artist's in the country. If you ever need a bird done this guy should be your first choice.
Great info HAWK, thanks for that also. :thumb
OK, here are some numbers from the USGS Bird Banding Program:
As of 2004, approximately 60 million birds have been banded across the United States and Canada under the North American Banding Program. About 4 million of these bands have been recovered. On average, about 1.1 million birds are banded every year. (These are the most recent numbers I can come up with)
Game birds make up only 31% of birds banded, but account for 72% of band recoveries.
OK, I'll try to keep the math simple here since it is far and away my worse subject. In 2001 222,006 ducks were banded. Since I cannot locate a breakdown on the different types I will guess that a quarter were mallards. 25% OF 222,006 is approximately 55,501. If you take that compared to the latest "census" of mallards in North America (last year) which was 9 million mallards you come up with about .6% of them wearing bands from the USGS. Pretty low odds!
Of course, I could do some more math and figure out an approximation of number of banded mallards still flying around from previous years and try to narrow the percentage down even further but I have other things in my life that need my attention also :) I think I'll stick with a guess of about 5% after lookin' at all the numbers (by the way, I editted my last post. I misplaces the decimel on the percent of ducks banded by Ducks Unlimited).
By the way Mark, the USGS also stated that less than 10% of returned bands fail to produce information on that particular duck. I guess that makes your duck even more rare! CONGRATS
No problem Brett...I guess I'm a bit of a "geek" when it comes to this sort of stuff...and Killer challenged me and I never pass up a challenge!
Correct me if I'm wrong but that goose looks alot like a ross goose instead of a snow goose.
Does it have some bumps on it's bill next to where the feathers start?
From what I remember snow geese have orange bills and feet and ross geese have pink bills and feet.
That is a great looking goose and with a band to boot that is a true trophy.
These are Ross's goose pics. Note the smaller bill size.
Yeah I can see the difference now.
Thanks Mark.