Specs in MN????

Anyone else been seeing Specs(white fronted geese) migrating thru west central MN? I saw one flock about 4-5 years ago come thru and have never seen another one in 40 plus years of hunting waterfowl every weekend near Fergus fall, MN. The last week when I was up deer hunting I had them come thru several of the days. Yeah, I said Specs! I find it hard to believe they would be this far east, but I swear they were Specs.

It happens. A good stiff westerly wild for a few days straight will blow them off track or other weather patterns might have them looking for new ground.

About 10 years ago we had a large flock of snow geese fly into our Canadian decoys in Farmington where we use to hunt. Everyone looked at each other like WTH??? There were even some blues mixed in with the snows.

Definitely a weird year for migration. White fronts were migrating down the Mississippi south of Hastings all day yesterday. More than I’ve seen in total in the state of Minnesota.

I was thinking that the dry conditions in ND might be the cause. My buddy was out there duck hunting in western ND a few weeks back and he said all the pot holes were dried up. That could push them to the east some, but MN is quite a bit out of their flyway.

I checked the DNR records and the most specs ever counted in MN was 3 in Lac qui Parle in 2011. Sure would be cool to have them start using MN for their flyway.

Snows are fairly common in MN. The western side for sure and some of them do use the Mississippi river for a migration route.

I have shot a speckle belly in Wendell MN about 10 years ago we saw many flocks that day but only one came to the dekes.

Mwal

Saw a few big flocks flying high/south this past weekend out by LQP. Seeing a lot of different birds in the slough this year. Weve seen em almost yearly out in LQP over the years but its just one flock a year, alot more than that this year.

I heard 4 flocks of laughers migrating over Paynesville area while deer hunting this past weekend.

Sitting in the stand in Rosemount last night a flock flew over us. Not Evan that high. They were beautiful.
I wanted to shoot them . Lol

Good, so I am not crazy . Glad to hear and thanks for the reports!

I saw a flock of some kind of geese over Woodbury yesterday. Big V and high. They were squawking so i knew they weren’t canadian but I couldn’t tell what they were. Definitely not white.

I saw a single spec flying with Canadians into a retention pond at the cabelas in Madison wi this past weekend. Only one I have ever seen.

Crazy migratation for sure. Couple years ago I shot a speck in Afton. Wished I would have got it mounted. Only one Ive ever shot plus really unusual to see around here.
Fast forward. 2 weeks ago my son was hunting Hastings fields and shot 2 Ross geese.

My buddy shot a spec on spring lake last week in Hastings

Just got an reply back from the DNR. They don’t have an explanation why, but they have been getting a lot of reports of Specs in MN this year.

I am very curious as to why the shift in migration.

I’ve been seeing more specs than honkers while pheasant hunting out west/southwest. Not big numbers but they are out there.