Alan Liere: Collecting waterfowling jewelry

Although my waterfowl season was abbreviated last year due to the pressing need for $20,000 worth of medical and dental emergencies, it was actually very satisfying. I shot a banded goose in Canada in September and a banded mallard in December – the fifth and sixth banded birds in a lifetime of hunting.

Of course, I was thrilled to collect this “waterfowl jewelry,” but as always, it was a bit discomfiting to hold the lifeless body of a banded bird that someone had once held gently before releasing it with a toss into the air and a hearty “Good luck, pal!”

I have been in on the banding process myself several times as a volunteer with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and I know firsthand how thrilling it is to hold a wild thing close to your chest, feeling its warmth and its beating heart. On one hand, you want it to thrive; on the other, you know your work is in vain if no bands are returned. The ultimate irony of my banding endeavors was the season I helped band a greater scaup in July and shot the same bird in November just 10 miles away.

Many waterfowlers hunt their entire lives without shooting a banded bird. Others, particularly guides who are out day after day wear necklaces made of duck and goose bands on a lanyard with their calls. These lanyards are so laden they look silly.

I have been hunting over 60 years, and I remember distinctly each banded bird I have killed. As with girls and shotguns, however, I remember the first best of all. It was a mallard drake taken the last week of the season 50 years ago.

An early thaw had flooded a one-acre bowl in a field of wheat stubble near Cheney. A friend and I built a rough blind against a scab rock bluff just off the new pond, threw out a few decoys, and had pretty fair shooting but minimal success.

At one point, a mallard drake flew directly over our heads barely 30 yards up. We both rose, shot, missed, and sat back down as the bird disappeared. Later, when the ducks quit flying altogether, I left the blind to wander around in the sagebrush behind us. Miracle of miracles, I found a freshly killed mallard drake behind the blind. And it had a leg band.

Upon selfishly considering the possibility my friend could also claim the band, I fired my gun, let out a whoop, and soon returned to my buddy in the blind holding aloft my banded bird. My friend was envious but happy for me. I can’t say my guilt was terrible, but it did occupy a spot on the fringes of my subconscious until many years later when I was given an opportunity for absolution.

I had taken a young friend, Michael, with me one November and had set up a large spread on the Crab Creek Channel off Potholes Reservoir in Grant County. Michael wasn’t a newbie to waterfowl hunting, but his ducks harvested could have been counted on one hand. He was still learning to shoot, and every duck he bagged was a treasure to be admired and babbled about all the way home.

On this particular day, Michael hadn’t hit a duck by late morning and we were just about to call it quits when a small flock of redheads came roaring through the decoys. I stood quickly, shot, and a large drake folded. As my dog made the retrieve, I could see sunlight glinting off the metal band on the duck’s leg.

I let out an animated “Yeah!” and grinned at Michael and saw that he was ejecting a smoking spent shell from his single shot 20-gauge. Evidently, we had fired simultaneously. Michael looked at me, his eyes wide, the excitement lighting up his face. “Did you shoot, too?” he asked.

In my heart, I knew I had killed that duck. And I had wanted a prime mounted redhead drake for many years. To shoot one with a band was more than I could have dreamed of. But I reached down and took the beautiful bird from the dog and handed it to my young friend. “Nope,” I said. “Great shot, kid! Your first band, too! You were too fast for me on that one.”

Michael had the bird mounted, as I hoped he would, and I’m still looking for a prime redhead drake of my own. It’s probably too much to ask, but in my dreams, it’s wearing some jewelry.