Hi all,

The last couple of years I've become a bit obsessed with finding and
reporting banded geese and swans. On January 10th I noticed a pair of
banded Snow Geese in the huge flock frequenting the Vancouver Lake area and
reported their bands that day. Yesterday I received their reports and
learned the birds were banded on Wrangel Island in Russia, my first
non-U.S. birds! An online article from last July notes that in 2017
Wrangel Island had their highest count of Snow Goose pairs in 50 years:
100,000 pairs! This pair I saw was just one in 100,000.

The brief Wrangel article can be found here:
http://arctic.ru/environmental/20170727/649716.html

Photo of the banded geese here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/stoptellingmeitsokay/25761007438/

The band reports noted that 57 is a female and 43 is a male. They
definitely seemed to have a strong bond when I saw them, sticking together
even after the flight spooked briefly and re-landed.

Screenshot of the band report here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/stoptellingmeitsokay/28038255179/

The bander's address is in Vancouver, WA, which makes it all even more
interesting to me.

Good birding!

Jen Sanford
Vancouver, WA
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