Old Birds

I shot 2 banded mallards the last 2 weekends of the season. Both birds were banded in 2008 and hatched in 2007 meaning they were 11 year old birds. I have been doing some reading about banded ducks being reported there were 17-20 years old when killed.

Anyone else here reported a bird that was over 10-15 years old?

Thats a lot of miles! Congrats! Very cool trophies

I have a black duck and bluegoose that we’re both 19+ years. They were banded as adults 18 years before i Shot em.

Have several Brant bands in the 10+ range and one that was banded as an adult 18 years before I got it.

I’ve got another handful of goose bands in the 10-15 range. Got a snow Monday that was 13 years.

I’ve got a redhead band that is so worn that we can’t get two of the numbers. Bird lab has two unreported in that range. Either 11 or 18 years old.

Lotta miles is right!!!!

Very nice brazosboyt

I was just looking at a map and from where they were banded to shot is over 1500 miles one direction. So you figure twice a year over 10 years they would have flown over 30K miles in their lives.

Killed a blue goose that was at least 20 yrs old.

I shot a red head that has a band on it that you can not read any of the numbers it is so worn down. Just looks like a plain ring around its leg. I have no idea how old it is but I imagine pretty old. It is on the wall.

they do it more than twice a year. I put another 15k miles on that ###:

It’s easy to raise the number with acid. My son shot this one and you can see it had no visible numbers. After I acid washed it, it turned out the be 8 years.