Igor


How would he have been able to make it back? He didn't seem to have as much training as his siblings and he didn't seem to be very good at flying at all. Why would they expect him to be able to make the flight back with his family?

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I was wondering the same, but after all it's a movie (yes, it's based on real life events, which is very cool!). I think in the making of, in RL Bill Lishman also had a similar goose with a wing problem... I wonder how that goose got back, too!

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Well, Igor could have remained a pet. Canada geese are not rare in Ontario -- they are probably the commonest waterfowl around Canada and the Northern US states. (I live in Ohio; they are literally everywhere.)

While Canada geese USED to all migrate south, today a lot of them simply stay put. There is plenty for them to eat, and people feed them. They are quite hardy birds who can tolerate winter weather. They are smart, have powerful instincts and are THRIVING.

If anything, there are too many of them now. In my area, sometimes they need to be rounded up -- out of malls and parking lots and office complexes -- and taken to nature areas. The goose poop problem is a big one.

It would be idiotic to clip the wings of a few geese, because there are literally TENS OF MILLIONS all over this region of North America. I think there are some vague laws in my state about not keeping wildlife as pets, but enforcement is pretty lax.

Problem is if you TRY to keep a goose as a pet, and don't clip their wings....they will FLY AWAY. Because they have incredibly powerful instincts to do so, AND they can see other birds flying around. While their mother bird does teach them stuff, they also learn from the big flocks they hang out with -- Canada geese live in huge flocks. They are not solitary critters.

The "facts" in this movie are so bizarre, it's almost science fiction.

So don't worry about "Igor" (who is not real -- this story did not happen this way -- it was an ADULT MAN who trained some geese to fly alongside his ultralight airplane). A real life lgor would either remain in Ontario OR fly back there in spring with his flock.

Oh lastly: you don't need a migratory refuge for a common hardy bird like a Canada goose. They live happily right near me in PARKING LOTS and shopping malls, and will nest right next to busy roads and cars.

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I live in Ohio and see plenty of geese too. ;)

I believe it was the wildlife guy in the movie who said that the birds needed to be clipped or they'd have the instinct to fly and not know where to go. So, that part, at least, was in there. I also knew this wasn't exactly a true story.

I just think it's weird that they carried Igor all the way there and then supposedly expect him to be able to make such a long journey back on his own two wings. I guess i'll just have to imagine that they took him back to Canada with them and clipped his wings, so he could be kept as a pet. Though, they couldn't show that happening in the movie as it would completely counteract an earlier dramatic scene... Ah, well. Maybe they stayed in Wherever-They-Landed (Florida?) for a while to continue training Igor to strengthen his wings. If they were really determined enough, it could happen. Haha.

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Igor lost some feathers when he collided with Amy's plane during one of the practice flights. That was the reason he "flew" south as a passenger.

Thomas told Amy the feathers would grow back; obviously they did. If he had difficulty flying, most likely the problem was not his wings but his misshapen leg, since birds need their feet for liftoff. As he matured, he may have simply learned to compensate somehow for that leg.

As long as he was physically fit to fly, navigating the spring flight back to Canada was easy. Migratory birds actually memorize landmarks. Also, since the flock went south together, they probably flew back north together. Igor's brothers and sisters would have kept him on the correct flight path.

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I understand that he would know the way back and that he'd have the ability to fly; i just don't see how he'd be able to make the journey. They were specifically training the birds to be able to fly such a long distance and from what we saw in the movie, Igor didn't get off the ground for a while, so he wouldn't have had as much training as his siblings. And then he didn't fly at all during that first journey south. I don't understand how they could expect him to fly all the way back.

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Igor will be be older, stronger, faster and smarter when it's time for him to fly back north. And while slower than the other geese to take off and fly, once he does, Igor keeps up with them until he accidentally flies into the plane's wing and injures himself.

Amy and Thomas are in a race against time. They have to deliver the birds to North Carolina by X date or the developer will have the right to do what he wants with the wetland--and he obviously intends to fill in the lake and build houses on the site. Amy and Thomas push the geese to build up their stamina because they have to make a long flight in a matter of days.

There will be no deadline pressure the following spring, when the geese return to Canada--it's not, after all, as if they have to vacate the premises before high-season rates go into effect. They'll fly north at the pace which is most comfortable for them.

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You're right that the geese don't have a deadline, but right before they started training the geese, Thomas cited how much distance wild geese generally cover each day while journeying south. He was using that as a guideline. Would the other birds really slow down to allow Igor to keep up? If they follow the same path as their "parents", which the movie stated that they would, they would have to fly the same distance per day to reach each stop, therefore, they can't slow down. They don't fly much once they've reached where they'll be for the season either, so Igor won't be increasing his stamina over the winter.

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As I said before, Igor does keep up with his flock mates once he's actually airborne. He lags behind only in taking off from the ground.

On their return flight to Canada they might stick together, but not necessarily. To cite another example: Although March 19 is famous as the day when the swallows of Mission San Juan Capistrano return to California from their winter homes in South America, not all the swallows do return at the same time. They straggle in over the course of a week or more.

Since geese mate for life, if any of them form romantic attachments in North Carolina, they might just fly north with their new mates.

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Eh, i still think the movie showed him struggling enough as a flier that it's unreasonable to expect him to make the return journey. However, i don't care enough about it to continue discussing it. Thank you for your input!

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Apparently no one watched the closing credits, at the end it clearly states "In the following spring Amy's flock took off and headed north on their own. All 16 geese INCLUDING IGOR returned to Amy's front porch"

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I have read that each time I've seen the movie. I did not ask if he made it back, but how he was able to make it back and why they expected him to be able to make the journey when his flying was so poor. It's a work of fiction; they could have said Igor grew an extra head on his journey back if they wanted to, but it has to make sense. And Igor making that long journey home without practice doesn't make sense to me.

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Even when geese are settled into a territory for the season and not about to make a migratory journey, they do actually still take to the skies more locally, flying a few miles around their region and even landing on different ponds, lakes and waterways if there are others in the area, before returning to a "homebase" water.

So in the time between flying south and having to fly north again, this flock would have been flying around their local winter home in general, and Igor would have been able to regain his damaged flight feathers and fly strongly enough to accompany his flock back north when the time came.

Remember, the flock didn't have practice at a journey that long either before they flew south -- they just flew locally before that, and flying locally for practice will be what Igor would get to do before flying north also. Same as the others did before flying their first south migration -- so, same thing.




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