Subject: Snow Goose Fest, Nov 5-6
Date: Oct 29 10:40:24 1994
From: Michael Price - Michael_Price at mindlink.bc.ca



Re the Snow Goose Festival, Sat-Sun Nov 5-6,
George C. Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary
Ladner BC Canada
Admission is free, 9.30 AM--4.30 pm.

It's a pretty popular event, so the organisers request you use a free
shuttlebus service from downtown Ladner to minimise car congestion at the
refuge itself.

There'll be tens of thousands of geese, many of them from the Wrangell Is.
breeding population in Siberia, recognisable by red neck collars.

Some wear yellow-&-green collars: these are birds from a newly-discovered
population (c100 prs.) on the Siberian mainland. The Japanese
ornithologists who banded & collared these birds expected they'd all
migrate down the Asian coast, so the presence of some of them on this side
of the Pacific is a surprise to everybody.

Later in the winter, most of these birds will have finished off the forage
at Reifel and will mosey on down to the Skagit Delta. Radio-collaring has
shown that there's then a certain amount of commuting between Skagit and
Reifel until the northbound migration.

* * * *

Just to clear up a possible misconception: there's *no* hunting within the
few hectares of the refuge itself, but there is hunting around it,
particularly in abutting foreshore, from early Oct to late Nov, and from
early Feb to mid-Mar. Part of the refuge is closed off during hunting
season because of the danger of shot falling onto refuge patrons from goose
hunters ignoring the guideline that directs them to shoot away from the
landward side of the foreshore, and from pheasant hunters in fields
adjacent to the Refuge.

PS: First Snow Buntings back today, 2 at Iona S Jetty end.

Michael Price
Vancouver BC Canada
michael_price at mindlink.bc.ca