Neck tagged Canada Goose from Greenland!

Tagged Canada Goose, Hadley Cove, Hadley, MA, Mar 23, 2013

Tagged Canada Goose, Hadley Cove, Hadley, MA, Mar 23, 2013

As mentioned in an earlier post from March 23 I found a neck tagged Canada Goose at Hadley Cove:(http://quabbinbirdingandbeyond.blogspot.com/2013/03/greater-white-fronted-goose-or-geese.html
 I have just gotten back some detailed information about this individual from researchers in Denmark.  The bird (a male) was originally tagged in west Greenland on July 17, 2008!  Very cool.  It has been seen a few other times over the last several years (list included at bottom of post).  With all the recent Greater White fronted Geese around I guess it is not completely unexpected that a Canada Goose joined them in their trip down from Greenland.  It is very interesting to me to track the journeys that certain individual birds take over the course of their lifetimes.  I have seen (and reported) several tagged geese over the years but this one is the farthest travelling individual I have yet found.  This is the first time I have gotten back a personal e-mail (with quite a bit of detail) from a researcher on a tagged bird I have found.  I have included the e-mail below:

Thank you very sincerely for your reports of the Canada Geese marked with the yellow collar GJA From just south of Hatfield, Hampshire County, Mass.on 23 March 2013 for which we are extremely grateful! I am very happy to tell you that this Canada Geese was marked by our banding team in Greenland and that we are extremely excited about the news! GJA was caught as part of a project to mark Greenland White-fronted and Canada Geese in west Greenland in the summer of 2008 and was recaptured nearby on another lake in summer 2009!
GJA was caught and banded on a lake simply known as Lake T to the banding team (very few lakes in this area have Greenlandic names) which is at 67°07'58"N 50°34'02"W in an area known as Isunngua, immediately north of the airport at Kangerlussuaq in west Greenland. This has been a study area for our investigations on and off over many years. It was an adult male when caught, part of a flock of 42 non-breeding adults trapped on 17th July 2008. It was retrapped the following year on Lake U (67°08'04"N 50°34'26"W) on 18th July 2009.

I have taken the liberty of attaching two files below for your information - one containing the listing with your observation along with others from this year so far and a pdf file containing a short paper describing our earlier findings (this file need Adobe Reader to open - let me know if you cannot open this). If you would like a little more information about the project last summer, you can find this at:http://greenland10.wikispaces.com/ with an update from this year via the link on the bottom of the list in the Word document.You may also be interested to read of other sightings of these geese from North Maine (including photographs) athttp://northernmainebirds.blogspot.com/

Needless to say, if you hear of any other reports of ringed or collared Canada Geese (especially those beginning with G since these are ours) please do not hesitate to report them to us here - needless to state, we would be extremely interested to know whether any other collars turn up in this area.
Do not hesitate to get in touch if you would like further information!

All very best wishes and enormous thanks again for taking the trouble to report these birds!
T

Tony Fox
Research Professor

Department of Wildlife Ecology and Biodiversity
National Environmental Research Institute
University of Aarhus
Kalø
Grenåvej 14
DK-8410 Rønde
Denmark

Below I have also included the various sightings of this particular goose since it was initially captured back in 2009.  Interesting in that the bird travelled quite a bit further south this winter.  Keep your eyes out over the next few weeks for neck tagged geese (especially tags that start with "G"). 

GJA caught Isunngua, west Greenland, July 2008

 

GJA         18.07.2009              Lake U, Isunngua, West Greenland                                                          RESIGHT                                GWGS

GJA         12.04.2010              Beaudet Reservoir, Victoriaville, Quebec, Canada 46°04’N 71°58’W      RESIGHT                                CR

GJA         21.04.2010              Beaudet Reservoir, Victoriaville, Quebec, Canada 46°04’N 71°58’W      RESIGHT                                CR

GJA         21.05.2010              Near Lake P, Isunngua, West Greenland                                                  RESIGHT                                HTH

GJA         19.03.2012              Bassin de Chambly, Saint-Mathias-sur-Richelieu, near Montreal,

Canada, 45°27'40.1”N 73°16'23.6” W                                     RESIGHT                                RBE

GJA         31.07.2012              Lakes Q and R, Isunngua, West Greenland                                                              RESIGHT                                HTH

GJA         23.03.2013              Hadley Cove, Hatfield, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, USA

42°19’49.95”N 72°35’17.92”W                                                              RESIGHT                                LT

Thanks to the researchers for providing all this detailed information on this bird I have included in this post.