John Flores: Winter birding trips lead to special encounters

Each year I make it a point right after the holidays to schedule an all-day Saturday trip to southwest Louisiana to do some winter birding specifically targeting waterfowl with my camera. As a waterfowl hunter who hasn’t missed a duck season since moving into the state in 1984, I look forward to this annual adventure.
Essentially, whether I’m using a shotgun or a camera, I get the same satisfaction. I still have to take aim with my camera. I still must be patient for the shot I want. And if all goes well, I still get to admire the bird through the image I took.
The thing southwest Louisiana has going for it is the vast national wildlife refuge system that’s available to nature lovers free of charge. Another is the endless miles of back roads that crisscross farm country. More specifically, harvested rice fields.
Recently, I made my annual quest leaving my home in Patterson at 3:30 a.m. Driving through the wee hours of the morning, I arrived at Cameron Prairie National Wildlife Refuge’s Pintail Drive in the twilight.
Pintail Drive is a 3.1 mile auto route around a controlled wetland impoundment consisting of marsh grasses designed to hold waterfowl. From your vehicle you literally can see thousands of snow, Ross, and white-fronted geese along with a dozen species of ducks.
At that time of day, I was the only one on the refuge. Note, one of the advantages of being a duck hunter is also being an early riser. So, there I sat eating a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit I bought from Chesson’s Grocery and Conoco Station just up the road from the refuge waiting for daylight with my windows rolled down listening.
There’s nothing like the sound of green winged teal, widgeon and pintail ducks whistling, along with geese clucking in the twilight. In the distance I could also hear the high pitched “kack-kack-kack” of blue winged teal calling to each other.
I started getting anxious when I heard their wings slice through the air as they passed over my pickup truck and landed in the pool of water near me. So anxious, it caused me to start doing an equipment check.
After sunrise, for the next two hours I took pictures, then decided to travel east along La. 14 to Lacassine National Wildlife Refuge, hoping to see more waterfowl. Turning south onto Illinois Plant Road, I spotted a flock of about 200 greater white-fronted geese feeding in a harvested rice field. So, I pulled my truck over and shot a few pictures.
That’s when I spotted something odd about one particular goose in the flock that was in my estimation no less than 50 to 60 yards away. I grabbed my binoculars and studied it and saw that the bird had a GPS collar.
Once I isolated the goose, I decided to put my extender on my camera, which added some distance to my 400mm lens. On my birding excursions, whenever I see birds with collars, bands or leg tags, I try to take as many pictures of these markings as I can. Sometimes you need a little more mojo.
By doing this, what I hope to accomplish is obtain enough information so I can report the bird to the United States Geological Survey’s Bird Banding Laboratory as an encounter.
Waterfowl hunters typically do most of the band reporting, obviously. Once a duck or goose is shot, they have the bird in hand, where they easily report the band numbers. In turn, they receive a certificate of appreciation and get to keep the band, which most display on their call lanyards.
Essentially, I’m doing the same thing as the shotgun hunter, only with my camera, I’m leaving the bird alive in the field.
When I got home that afternoon, I immediately loaded the pictures onto my computer and through the magic of my Lightroom photo processing program, was able to crop and zoom up on the goose’s leg band.
The picture was fuzzy and pixelated, but with my face to the screen of my computer and using a magnifying glass, I could make out a series of numbers. They read 8800.
Now I had three pieces of information. I had a white-fronted (speckle belly) goose, with a GPS collar, and four digits of a leg band.
It was enough. Like a super sleuth I began putting the puzzle pieces together. Several years ago, I had written about banding and placing GPS collars on white-fronted geese, so I text messaged Paul Link, the LDWF biologist who oversees this monitoring program.
I said, “Paul, I think I have one of your birds. I have the numbers 8800 from a greater white- fronted goose with a GPS collar.”
My logic was only so many speckle belly geese in a series of banding numbers would have a GPS collar. I was right. About a half hour after I texted Paul, he texted back.
“I have a collared female wearing band 2197-88800 that’s been all around Illinois Plant Road this winter,” he said.
I had my bird, and that evening went online and reported the sighting as an encounter to the Bird Banding Lab.
Over the years I’ve reported bands from reddish egrets, prothonotary warblers, laughing gulls, sanderlings, plovers, and white-fronted geese as encounters. In fact, in my 38 years of duck hunting, I’ve only harvested two ducks that had leg bands by comparison.
The information is valuable in determining species migration routes, survival, and population numbers, to name a few.
January and early February is the best time to see wintering waterfowl in the marshes and agricultural fields of southwest Louisiana. What’s more, you never know what you might “encounter!”