Last Thursday on my return from enjoying views of a couple of Snowy Owls in Seneca County, I drove NYS-89 along Cayuga Lake, and opposite Ernsberger Road (Seneca County Road 128) a saw a raft of SNOW GEESE, nearly all of the white flavor and a couple thousand strong, not far offshore. I scanned them awhile, unsuccessfully, for Ross' Goose, but I did note a bird with a yellow neck collar "TC57", which I reported to the USGS bird banding lab (easy: just google "report bird band". I received a reply today. This female Greater Snow Goose was an adult (hatched in 2010 or earlier) when she was banded on 11 August 2011 on the south plain of Bylot Island in Nunavut, Canada. This is off the northeast coast of Baffin Island, about 2000 miles almost due north of us, and about 450 miles north of the Arctic Circle. I estimated distances using a National Geographic atlas Chamberlin Trimetric Projection map and a ruler. If anyone cares to be more accurate, the banding location was
73.13333, -79.83333. Bylot Island is the same area where the same researcher, Gilles Gauthier, has banded some other Snow Geese whose collars I have reported in spring further north on Cayuga Lake. Some of his collared birds I have reported were also banded at a migration stopover along the St Lawrence River.
--Dave Nutter
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