Goose roundup

So there I was, in the middle of a lake chasing geese around.  True story.  I felt like a sheep dog rounding up geese into a pen.  It was so awesome though,  except for the wind blowing 90+ mph, give or take a few mph.  At first it worked out to our advantage, but at the turn around I felt like I had a parachute on my back.  Here, let me try to draw a picture for you to give you an idea of how windy it was.  Ok, first, imagine that you are in a canoe in the middle of a lake.  Now imagine it being really windy out there.  So, you get the idea now?  It was windy. Anyways, we spent about two hours out there corraling geese into a pen so we could do some banding afterwards. It was so incredible handling these geese and it was just an amazing experience overall.  So let me bring you into my week as the days progressed. 
 

Day 1: Travel and Camp

Today I had about a 4 hour drive to Wilson Hill Wildlife Management area in Massena area.  All that on the windiest day of the week with a canoe rigged on top.  That was scary as all heck.  Excuse the language.  The entire drive I watched that thing sway back and forth in the wind.  Don't get me start on what it was like when a mac truck passed by on the highway going about 70mph.  I swear I saw the entire canoe lift off the car a couple times.  I even think the tires lifted off the ground, too.  That just made the drive that much longer.  But luckily we made it the entire way with no accidents.  Once we arrived, we got greeted to the headquarters area there which was pretty much just a large garage with a toilet and set up camp.  We had a little while until we were going to be fed a nice BBQ chicken dinner so we ventured on out to see what was in the area.  Well I guess all that was in the area was a raccoon.  After dinner, we explored a little more and did some fishing.  Well more like casting.  Why is that people that fish right next to me always catch 10 pound walleye?? I never have luck fishing.  Better luck next time.  But the scenery was so beautiful that night.  The rain clouds on one side and the sun blazing on the other side (Rain clouds in the US, not a cloud in the sky in Canada). 

I got to witness a double rainbow; one full on and the other part way.  The pictures don't really do it justice.  Just take a look at the video I made of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI.  Check it out.  Alright that is not me, but it was an amazing view.  You would really have to be there.  And to top it off I got to see an incredible sunset.  So at the end of the night we all got together one last time before everyone headed off to bed to roast marshmellows on the campfire and sing kumbaya.     













Day 2: The roundup   

There were about forty canoes/kayaks out for this annual goose roundup event.  All was going well until I sank about knee deep into the water launching our canoe. Anyways, after launching, we lined the lake from east to west covering all areas so no geese could pass. That was until the wind picked up. We ended up bunched up on one side of the lake trying our darndest not to side swipe the guy next to us.  Remember it was windy. Don;t forget the imagery I gave you earlier.  Luckily there were no geese at that point.  But off in the wild blue yonder swam a large flock of geese that taunted us and called us names.  So what do we do? We get back at them and start paddling their way.  It was a flock of what looked to be about 200 geese.  As we headed closer to them, they started to swim away from us, which is exactly what we wanted.  Little did they know, we were forcing them to a natural funnel that would lead them to a pen. 

They swam along in a tight group as we pushed them closer and closer to the trap; they were unable to fly away because of their molting wings. One of the scare tactics for getting the geese to move along was banging the sides of the canoe to make a loud "paddle on a canoe side" sound. One would think that 40 canoes heading closer to you and chasing you down would be scary enough.  But we continued to do it anyways. Of course I had to chime in to fit in with the crowd. Oviously what we were doing worked just fine.  Out of those almost 200 geese, only 2 got away from us, so not too bad.  I tried to chase down one escapee, but he flipped me the bird (pune kindof intended) and swam away. All was successful and ran real smootly. The geese made it into the pens safe and sound with no harm done.  We all docked the canoes and got ready for a much needed lunch.  We were fed a nice BBQ lunch provided by a local rod and gun club which consisted of hamburgs, hot dogs, cheetohs (my favorite), and some extremely sugary lemonade. But it was still good.

After a well deserved energy booster, we started the banding.  This was so much fun and there were so many geese.  There must have been more geese in the pen before we rounded up those 200 geese because we ended up banding over 700 geese that day.  I can't even count the number of geese that I handled, but it was so amazing getting to get hands on experience with this animal.  And all of them had their own different personality.  Some would remain calm, and limp. Others were fighters, honking, biting, and flapping trying to get away.  Majority of the time, those were the female geese. So once we banded the leg, we would age and sex them and release them back into the lake they originally came from. No geese were harmed in the making of this event, except for the ones that got injured.  I am kidding, none got injured.  It was just an incredible day. Not every day you can say that you got bit by, pooped on by, bleed on by, scratched by, yelled at by a goose.  Good times.  

We ended at about 2 in the afternoon with the banding and headed out for home.  We took a little detour on the more scenic route and headed for A-Bay.  We stopped in to get some liner/dunch for the ride home. That was about all the excitment for the day, except for the wind again, but I don't need to go into that again. But I will say if you ever get the chance to get out and do some goose or duck banding, do it.  That is an experience of a life time that you will never forget.  

Day 3, 4, and 5:
Not much of anything happened these days, but it was still fun.  I mean I could talk about exactly what I was typing on the computer and how the AC felt really great inside the building, but I am not going to do that.  But I will say it was so hot outside the entire week.  ISo I am still working on my canoeing program and helping set up for the youth summer program and working on other projects.  I got to clean and rig up some fishing poles.  Next week I will be getting out and testing the poles to make sure they are durable and find out if I need to change line or not.  Saturday I worked in the Visitor Center talking to visitors and informing them of the places to go on the refuge.  For those that read this, you really need to take the time to check out the refuge.  I can recommend some good places to you.  Maybe I can give you a tour of the refuge.  Other than that I don't really have much else interesting to say.  Sorry to disappoint you.  I did actually get out before the VC work and use the spotting scope on one of the pools.  That was nice.  Saw some different cool looking waterfowl, like the ruddy duck.  That little duck is so cool looking.  Google it, you will see.

Well I guess I am going to close out here.  Hope you enjoyed this post.  If you didn't, I don't really care.  But keep in tune for the next weeks to come.  I hope to be seeing some of you in the next few weeks.  And of course the little species list:

Woodchuck, red fox, white tailed deer, stripped skunk, Eastern cottontail, Indigo bunting, common yellowthroat, American redstart, song sparrow, barn swallow, wood duck, ruddy duck, ringneck duck, Canada goose, David Spade, mallard duck, great egret, gray catbird, Robin, bluebird, goldfinch, scarlet tanager, yellow throated vireo, GBH, pterodactyl, Caspian tern, gulls, black tern, coot, pied-billed grebe, veery, cedar wax wing.