A month ago (1/10) we went to the Skagit flats with neighbors for a day
of birding. The next evening (1/11) while composing a report to tweeters,
I found a note on the tweeters of 1/8 from Kelly McAllister giving the
email address of Mary Gustafson at the bird banding lab. This seemed to
be a reasonable place to report the scarlet collars with white letters
seen on a number of the Snow Geese, so off went the report to
<BBL at nbs.gov>.
I then wrapped up the day glancing through that day's tweeters
when I got a "beep" and had a note from Todd Eskelin at the U of AK in
Anchorage (at midnight) saying that a better address for Mary was
<Mary_Gustafson at nbs.gov>. So I sent my report of the three neck collar
numbers to that address as well.
vv On Monday morning at the crack of dawn I had replies from both
Mary and Laura Eldridge, Mary's secretary, asking for my street address so
they could forward additional information by mail. In response to my
reply and a question, Mary said on Tuesday that Laura
<Laura_Eldridge at nbs.gov> handles Canada Geese sightings while Mary handles
all other birds. A few days later I received a letter indicating that one
of the collars I reported must have been in error, as all of the collars
were marked with one letter and two numbers (e.g. N76). I'm looking
forward to learning more about the birds whose collars were easily visible
with binoculars on the periphery of the huge flock off Boe Rd. south of
Stanwood. There must have been 5,000 birds there (see below).
I also understand that others have been active in recording and
reporting these visible collars earlier in the winter. Let us know if
there is a local email address to which to copy such reports, for example
to the State Department of Wildlife.
And, finally, it's very difficult to estimate accurately the
number of birds in such a huge flock. I understand that RTP used to throw
a handful of rice grains on a table top, estimate the number, and then
count them until he improved his skill. But I guess we must realize the
important truth I read on a bumper sticker: There are three kinds of
people: those who can count and those who can't.
Fran Wood (male)