Today's report:
Weekend reports indicate the light goose migration appears to be back in a northward direction and going strong. Birds are scattered all over northeastern SD. No reports from south of I-90 make it appear the bulk of the migration is located along the I-90 corridor and northward.
Reports for Saturday had birds stretched from north of Beaver Lake (Humboldt area) to Island Lake and Twin Lakes. Estimates reported indicated there were hundreds of thousands of geese.
High numbers of birds were reported in Brookings, Hamlin, Kingsbury, and western Minnehaha counties. More birds have also appeared back in Day County, a few in Marshall County and at Sand Lake in Brown County.
Swan Lake in Clark has a good number of light geese. Long Lake in Day County has been loaded.
Conservatively, 10,000 + snow geese were reported on Lake Poinsett in Hamlin County and an equal number on Oakwood Lakes in Brookings County. Hunters have reported large numbers of birds on the big lakes in Kingsbury County, like Whitewood Lake, Lake Thompson, etc.
Today, Sand Lake Reports approximately 150,000 birds and more arriving and/or flying over Aberdeen. Large concentrations of snows were also seen south of Redfield on Mud Lake.
Reports from Redfield north to Aberdeen then west to Mobridge indicated very good numbers of birds in the Redfield area as well as all along 281 to Aberdeen. There were also very large numbers around the Northville and Mansfield area along Hwy 281. From around the Ipswich area to around the Roscoe/Bowdle area there were very good numbers of birds in the air and feeding in fields on both sides of HWY 12. There was also a large group feeding south of Spring Lake to west of Bowdle.
Large numbers of snow geese are reported to still be using lake Byron in Beadle County.
A good number of birds are reported to still be sitting on the lower end of lake Oahe and in the pocket on Lake Sharpe.