I submitted data to the Bird Banding Lab in Maryland for a banded Canada Goose that I (and others) saw in Two Harbors on 1/1/8/2005. Today, I received a certificate from the lab, reporting the initial banding data. This bird was 20 years old!!!!!
Banded: 06/27/1985 Age: Was too young to fly when banded in 1985. Location: Ledford, IL (just east of Carbondale, IL) Bander: Illinois DNR Recovered: Two Harbors, MN Date: 01/18/2005 This is a very enigmatic record in my opinion. First of this was a "smaller" goose, I'm not calling this bird a Cackler by any stretch, but this was one of the smaller Canada Geese, which was fully aged at 20 years. Second, what is it doing wintering NORTH of where it was born??? Very interesting. Tom Auer, Duluth -- www.d.umn.edu/~auer0009
