The following article appeared in the Boston Globe on Tuesday, April 19th
..

WASHINGTON - Ten geese that spent the winter in Virginia after they were led
there from Canada by two ultralight aircraft have flown back to the Toronto
area on their own - a successful step in an extraordinary experiment.

The geese were among 18 birds that landed at the Airlie Conference Center near
Warrenton on Oct. 25, after a seven-day journey that marked the first time a
wild flock had been led by an aircraft on a migratory route.

On Friday, 10 of the birds, which are identified by numbered bands, arrived on
the grassy landing strip outside the home of Canadian artist and pilot William
Lishman, who had led them south 350 miles in his fabric-and-metal aircraft.
[Correct me if I am wrong, but 350 miles north of Warrenton, Virginia is nowhere
near Canada. I'd guess Scranton, Pennsylvania. -RE].

"They look in great shape," Lishman siad in a telephone interview Saturday. "I
took them all kinds of goodies to eat, but they'd rather root in the pond".

Taking advantage of a phenomenon know as imprinting, in which birds believe the
first then they see after hatching is their parent, Lishman had trained them
to follow his ultralight plane soon after birth [sic] last spring. Unlike birds
that learn their migratory routes by instinct, geese, cranes and swans are
taught by following their parents.

Lishman and Airlie scientist William Sladen hoped that if the experiment worked
in teaching geese migratory routes, the same technique could be used to restore
rare species, such as whooping cranes and trumpeter swans, to territories they
once occupied. [I wonder what the social interactions of a bird who has
imprinted on an airplane are going to be like - RE].

Lishman is incubating another batch of goose eggs and hopes to train the
hatchlings for another flight in the fall.

The geese that returned from Virginia, meanwhile, probably will fly away in
June to a nearby lake to molt and grow new feathers. Sladen and Lishman said
they hope the geese will return to Airlie in the fall, which would be the final
proof that their experiment succeeded.

The flock of 18 geese that landed at Airlie last fall lost two of its members
to accidents over the winter. The flock split into two social gropus, each led
by a dominant male. The entire flock departed Airlie on April 2, late in the
goose-migration season.

Concerned when they had not arrived at his home after a week, Lishman and
flying partner Joe Duff went searching for the geese, driving the route they
had flown last fall.

It was Lishman's wife, Paula, who spotted 10 of the geese at their home Friday.
Sladen and Lishman said they expect the other six to surn up soon, but if they
don't, Lishman said, "even getting 10 back is fine. It's better odds than
happens in normal nature".

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 22 Apr 1994 12:02:38 -0700
From: Alvaro Patricio Jaramillo <jaramill at SFU.CA>
Subject: Re: Turtle doves

Joe Morlan wrote:
>
> S. orientalis - Rufous Turtle-Dove, accidental in Alaska
> Pribiloffs (sight record & photos), and I think there is also an
> Alaskan specimen. Sight record from British Columbia (I think)
> and California (Death Valley). Both the identification and
> natural occurrence of the California record are arguable and the
> record was ultimately rejected by the CBRC (California Bird
> Records Committee). This is a highly migratory species which
> regularly reaches Western Europe. It is apparently uncommon in
> captivity, but some of these records could have been escapes.

The British Columbia record of a few years ago was of a bird that came
to the feeder of Rory Patterson in Tofino BC. Tofino is a small town, rather
isolated, on the outer coast of Vancouver Island. This same yard has hosted
a variety of rarities including Rustic Bunting, Common Grackle, Dickcissel
and many more. Rory found a Falcated Teal just south of town a couple of
days ago. As far as I know this Rufous Turtle Dove record is accepted by
the appropriate committes as a wild ocurrence. There are nice photos of the
bird.
>
Al Jaramillo
jaramill at sfu.ca
Vancouver, British Columbia

------------------------------