bird numbers

[MN Guy]

I've been on the side lines the past weeks with a nasty cold flu thing. for the guys that have been out is anyone seeing northern birds down yet? I know that it's pretty stormy up north, just curious if the numbers have picked in lately.

thanks!

Minnesota Guy

[Dr Strangelove]

The word is they're all up at Tacoma, not coming down further due to decent weather or they like the smell. Hmmm.

[nitrobass]

We're feeding more ducks on our duck pond than we have in years, so I'm thinking there are definitely northern birds down. When you start seeing bunches of wigeon, teal, and pintails you know those arent locals. When the weather cooperates we're getting good shooting. Otherwise its a sloooow morning in the corn.

[id. painter]

In S.E. Idaho the numbers are up. The last several weeks have been awsome.
we dont see this many birds inless the Northerns are comming through. This last week end I set up in a field that had at least 5ooo big Canadas feeding in it for several days ...It was my son and his friend, my self , the land owner set up with a couple guys about a 1/4 mile away from us . We all killed our birds by about 11:00 A.M..
We here in Pocatello have not gotten much snow yet and the birds are staying around. Its been a banner year so far. id. painter

[Lured In]

There are birds around, but I usually go by the harvest results from Sauvie. Month to date, there are running about half of what they have in the last two years. I am still waiting to see those numbers come up. The eastside has yet to go over 200 in a day and only a couple days in December have been over 100. [img]graemlins/1zhelp.gif[/img]

There was a spike in birds the week of Thanksgiving, but many of those may have moved on or are in somebody's freezer.

[Gun Rod Bow]

I heard a lot of shootin Saturday Morning of Thanksgiving weekend. There had been a good wind on the coast that week. I had a good goose shoot, but didn't really see that many flying.

A friend and I scouted Yamhill County last Tuesday and saw a few birds in a lot of places, but not a lot in any place. We worked Wednesday.

That is exactly what I'm seeing so far, below average. I'd say 50% of normal as far as geese go in the North Valley.

I got a second hand report that Ankeny was estimated at 40% of normal. I also heard that a private club down by Corvalis is way down.

[willametteriveroutlaw]

I talked to the ankeny Refuge manager yesterday and he said that there are only about 50% of the geese here right now. In there last weeks fly off counts were roughly (geese):
10K basket
20K ankeny
10K william Finley
12K Fern Ridge

He said that there were more ducks starting to show lately.. Also the birds that usually leave the refuges to feed on surrounding feilds (ankeny) were sticking on the refuges alot more eating the feed down pretty fast.. (good news for late season goose hunting)

[ 12-09-2003, 11:19 AM: Message edited by: willametteriveroutlaw ]