I live about three blocks from Interstate 459, the major corridor that circles the city of Birmingham. Every morning at first light, four or five flocks of these geese come in low over my house headed for nearby Altadena, Heatherwood and Inverness golf courses. At those links geese find plenty of green grass to eat and water in the ponds -- a quiet sanctuary to raise their young. Needless to say, both the mess that the geese leave behind and the birds’ aggressive behavior toward golfers who get too near make them unwelcome guests.

Shortly after the birds became established in the Cotton State, the clamor for a goose season began to arise. And, frankly, few folks that have been around the birds came to their defense. Thus was born Alabama’s special early Canada goose season, which generally runs through the first couple of weeks in September.

The daily limit per hunter is five birds.

TURNING TO TEAL
Geese aren’t the only waterfowl that can be hunted early in the Yellowhammer State. Alabama has an early teal season, also open for most of September. In this case, however, it’s not because the birds are nuisances. Quite the contrary: They’re popular game birds, but ones that have a very early migration schedule. These ducks have come and gone before Alabama’s regular duck season even opens.

Targeting blue-winged, green-winged and cinnamon teal can be great sport this month. Flying just above the water, they can reach speeds of 50 miles per hour. At times they also act as if they can hear a load of shot headed their way, since they cut, dodge and roll so often. If you’re a wingshooter, and you enjoy humbling experiences, test your mettle on teal.

Teal like to hold in grasses and marshes. Often you find swarms of the ducks on the backwaters the north Alabama lakes along the Tennessee River.

Easy to identify when in the air because they fly so fast, they’re small, looking at a distance like a swarm of mosquitoes. As they come closer, the colored patches on their wings become visible, confirming the identification.

Fairly easy to decoy, these birds respond best to a teal whistle. Fortunately, the high-pitched whistle calls are easy to learn to use. Mixing some mallard decoys into the spread, as well as making an occasional mallard call, can enhance your efforts to entice the teal close to your blind.

The limit during the early teal season is four birds per hunter.

SNIPE AND WOODCOCK
These game birds have later seasons in the Cotton State, but they still don’t get any respect. Alabamians expend very few days on wingshooting for either species.

Snipe are so rarely taken seriously because of a long history of poor publicity. Most folks think about novice hunters straddling a ditch at night and holding a burlap bag open while waiting for their comrades to drive the birds down the gully and into the bag. (Just one example of how one ends up “holding the bag,” of course.)

In the actual world of snipe hunting, the birds are found in wetlands or flooded fields; there they use their long beaks to probe the mud for worms and other fare. Once flushed, they fly close to the ground at unbelievable speeds while cutting, rolling and diving.

The real downside to snipe hunting is that these birds’ bodies are quite small. When breasted out like a dove, they afford little meat for the dinner table, and that usually has an “earthy” flavor that probably derives from their forage.

Each year snipe season runs from mid-November through the first week of February. The daily limit is eight birds per hunter.