By plotting banding sites on northern breeding areas as well as the points where hunters harvested banded birds derived from those locations, biologists were able to delineate the four major waterfowl flyways that span North America. One of the earliest objectives of waterfowl banding research was to assist in discovering the migration routes followed by ducks and geese. On average about 350,000 waterfowl are leg banded each year, and around 85,000 are recovered and reported. Each band is inscribed with a unique eight- or nine-digit number, and the last number of the prefix indicates the band size. Most of today's leg bands are made of aluminum and vary in size according to waterfowl species. People have been banding birds for centuries in Europe, and the first large-scale North American banding program was established in 1922. When most hunters think about waterfowl markers, shiny metal leg bands immediately come to mind. Thus shooting a banded bird is a rare and special event indeed. Later in life, I learned that only a small number of waterfowl are banded and that an even smaller number of those birds are harvested. Being young I didn't understand all the hullabaloo that my father and his friends made over the occasion. My waterfowling career had a storybook beginning-the first Canada goose I ever shot on Wisconsin's famed Horicon Marsh was wearing a leg band, and that band still adorns my lanyard today.