Nebraska; It’s ok, I’m with the Band

As the Rooster Road Trip posse rolled out of the hotel parking lot in McCook, Nebraska this morning, we all had high expectations.

Nebraska Game and Parks Commission requests hunters provide the number of the band, and the location and date it was recovered. Bands may be reported by calling 402-471-1756.

Considering the fact that this same area produced more birds than any other state on last year’s trip, we were jacked.

As of this afternoon, I haven’t been disappointed. After all, I was lucky enough to witness my dog, Beau, retrieve my first-ever banded… pheasant? Yup, that’s right, I slid a wild, banded rooster into my Browning game bag and at the risk of sounding like an amateur, it feels pretty cool.

Andrew and Beau pose with their Nebraska banded ringneck.

What’s the story behind these bejeweled birds? From the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission:

Game and Parks is capturing wild birds in the focus area and putting leg bands on them. The purpose is to help understand how pheasants move and use the study area, portions of Hitchcock, Hayes and Red Willow counties, as well as hunter harvest in the area.

This study is being completed within the Southwest Focus on Pheasants Initiative that is being spearheaded by both the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission and Pheasants Forever.

For more information, check out this great video of the nighttime pheasant capture and leg banding taking place:

The Over/Under blog is written by Andrew Vavra, Pheasants Forever’s Marketing Specialist.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 15th, 2011 and is filed under Conservation, Habitat, Hunting, Pheasants, Pheasants Forever, Rooster RoadTrip. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.