Where are the birds....

Geese

I live along the Wabash river and can see the bottom wetlands from my house - this area fills up with geese once they start their trek......I haven't seen a goose or heard one.

 

I hunted one of our properties that's just west of Katy, Texas today. Wasn't a bad drive, 60 miles down I10 with a 75 mph speed limit. Took me about an hour and I stopped for gas. FINALLY, there were birds up until about 9:30. There were few teal, mostly big birds. I wasn't shooting particularly well, but still got a couple. One of the guys shot 5, the other 1, so the total was 8. The guy that shot the one didn't wanna mess with birds, so the other guy and I split 4 birds a piece.

Lots of redheads over there. I'm used to shooting redheads off the bay. The limit for 'em is only 2 and we shot 6. We mostly quit shooting because we had our limits of redheads. There were still ducks working around.

The other two guys don't call well, so they let me have the call duties. I particularly like calling, trying to work the birds, and they worked pretty well this morning. Good fun. Hoping it gets better, but I'm no longer zonked. I think this little front must have helped, but there may have been birds over in Katy all along, don't know.

Quite a few specklebelly geese over there. I worked a few flocks around, but we had nothing out to get 'em down. I think I heard ONE snow goose out of all the geese, everything else was specklebellies. So, nope, the geese ain't down here, yet.

 

I'm in Wisconsin and the waterfowl hunting sucked here as well. Maybe more northern birds will show now that we've got cold and snow.

As an aside this is opening day of gun deer season. It's cold with two inches of snow and there were spiders coming down from the trees.

 

First geese finally showed up here in eastern Nebraska today, just ahead of an ice storm.

 

When do the first typically how up Sergei?

Andy

 

That's good news.

Don't know about Nebraska, but they should be in Texas by now.

 

The storms have finally arrived. Lots of birds on the way south.

 

Finally been hearing/seeing snows flyin' since last weekend.

 

28 deg. and ice storms up here in Kansas today. Was seeing large Canadian geese on the ponds around lately. If I was as smart as a goose or a duck I'd be headed to Texas...

 

Usually the first ones arrive in October. Everything seems to be running a month or six weeks late this year - planting, harvest, migration, all of it.

 

Those office park geese are a separate population. They are the lazy new generation. They don't migrate, they don't fly in a "V" formation. You can hunt them with a golf club or your foot in some places.

 

Mc, got any geese yet. With the weather we are having at dfw, it would surprise me if you don't have lots more waterfowl down your way.

 

Haven't noticed any more, but not hunting at the moment. Usually, there's flocks in the fields between here and El Campo in the Garwood area. We go to church over in El Campo. Didn't see any snows today, only one flock of high flying specks. BUT, they'll be here, I have confidence! Another front is hot on the heels of this one.

Just picked up a doe permit. I'm going to have to go sit in my box blind, I guess, to try to fill it. But, I'll be goose hunting soon as I see we have birds in good numbers.

 

Cold? We're back in the 80's for the next three days here. (central FL).

My friends in Maine experienced 60F yesterday. Should be firmly in the 30's & 40's by now.

 

The snow geese seem to finally be filtering in, though the duck numbers are still low. I shot a couple of teal off one of our properties yesterday. There are 3 goose hunting fields, rice stubble, down there, and the geese started coming in about 8 AM and were still flying when I picked up at 9AM. There was a groups hunting the field next to the pond I was hunting and they were getting some shots. I'm starting to get a bit excited about the geese. Goose hunting runs through February, white geese, anyway, and if I get some good goose hunts in, I'll be happy. Time to break out the 10 gauge.

 

Our season is now over here in MN, and the birds never did show up. We've basically had the local geese, and early teal and woodduck and that's it. I miss the years of the flights of the big northern mallards that got all fat from the fields up in Canada...

 

MC, I'm still not seeing any more ducks here, but on Wednesday 23rd, saw a large flock of Sandhill cranes east of Waxahachie. Flying fairly high, heard them first, then saw them. They were flying south, don't know if they were migrating or just moving. Seems like they fly high anytime I have ever seen them. My brother feeds a lot of ducks at lake
Lavon, but it seems like the numbers are not up to normal winter time levels. However the lake level is still way high. Good shooting, I think the front coming in the next couple of days should get more down.

 

I know where the geese are now. They're all out back of my house! Couple hundred of them, easy, resting up before they move on, although with the weather south of here they might do well to stay a few days.

 

The strong El Niño forming in the pacific will dump lots of rain into CA but also changes airflow across the USA (at least from some of the cartoon graphics I've seen on the topic) leading to a more mild winter in the middle of the USA. I've only partially paid attention to the impact on the rest of the nation as I've been anxious to see lots of wet weather in CA since we've had 4 years of dry weather and drought and mandatory 25% water reductions. I hadn't thought of it impacting duck and geese but I suspect that's what went on. Please feel free to blame CA.

 

^ Accurate description in my experience. (And I deal with this topic professionally.)

The east coast has been sweltering this winter ... until now.
Down here, we'll keep the swelter -- still in the mid-80's next week.
My other home, however, is getting their first real snow on Monday and Tuesday.

Then, there were those tornadoes last week from 'Bama to Dallas. Hmm.
Couldn't have helped bird navigation. <-- topic

As for CA, yes, they're probably involved in this somehow.
But then, as a former OR resident, I like to blame them for pretty much everything.

 

We from finally got snow and cold weather here. Everything should be coming your way.

 

Wow, the Canadians still aren't around. Went out to the eastern part of CO, near KS border, and all there was were Snows at their migratory wintering spot. Ducks? Saw only a couple dozen where we'd typically see hundreds. Canadians? Saw less than a 2 dozen where we'd see multiple dozens at this time of year.

We typically expect less Canadian this time of year in this area but not virtually not existent numbers of them.

d2wing, where is "here"?

Thanks,
Andy

 

Drove from Dallas to Abilene on I-20 Friday the 1st. Ponds beside the road that I am accustomed to seeing lots of ducks on only had a few. Dove hunted near Stamford, saw a few ducks. We could occasionally hear some geese, but could not see them, they were most likely in a field upwind. Saw a bunch of sandhill cranes, landowner complaining about them as they mess up their wheat fields. Apparently they eat the seeds before they come up, and pull the whole plant up once they sprout.

Oh, we did ok on the doves, near limits on mourning doves, several collared doves.

 

I am in Minnesota. Most of the lakes are frozen over now. Still not real cold yet. We are supposed to get sub zero weather later this week. We want the ice to get thicker so we can drive to our fish houses on the lakes. Also so we can cross lakes on our snowmobiles.