[mou] Geese- 165,000

[Randy Frederickson]

Had one of the most enjoyable bird days of my life yesterday, 3/23.  Spent
the day in western Minnesota with Ron Erpelding and hit a goose migration I
didn't think was possible in this state.

Estimates:
White geese: snow/blue, Ross'-  110,000
White fronted-  35,000
Canada-  20,000

If you think these numbers are impressive, consider we did not really put on
many miles "looking to count."  Ron is a county lister, so we spent time at
each stop sorting through birds.  Ron sorted as I did my best to count.  But
then, how do you count a flock of 25,000+ white geese, which we had at least
3 times.  

Mud Lake in Traverse county had impressive numbers of both white geese and
white fronted, but we saw equally large concentrations north of there into
Wilkin county (and excellent numbers of birds in Grant, Stevens, and Big
Stone counties.) Because white goose hunting season is currently open, I
would rather not divulge exact locations on "the net."

There were many times during the day, the sky was absolutely full of geese,
scores of flocks with some flocks over 1500 birds.  (I differentiate between
flocks and "swarms."  Interestingly the white geese were swarming but not
migrating...20,000 birds would get up circle around and land again in the
same general area.  Where as we would see large lines/flocks/skeins of white
fronteds in formations heading north.)

An interesting thought...even if my counting was pathetic and I grossly
over-counted (which I didn't), if one assumes we saw 10% of the geese in
Western Minnesota yesterday, that easily puts the bird numbers over 1
million.  But the reality is, we really only spent time in 4 counties, and
only got a few miles into both Wilkin and Big Stone.  So, IF the goose
numbers were any where near what we saw in the north and south ends of the
state, there was easily several million geese in western Minnesota
yesterday.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous, the birds were unbelievable, and the
company was...well, you can't have everything (just kidding, Ron).  A day
and experience I may never equal.

P.S. If anyone else was at Mud Lake yesterday, I would be interested in
knowing the number of birds you estimated there.

Randy Frederickson
Willmar