 A wild bar-headed goose in Mongolia. (Bruce Moffat) Bar-headed geese migrate over the Himalayas, usually around three or so miles up. Two scientists raised several of these geese, from the instant the high-flying birds hatched, to study their remarkable biology in a wind tunnel — you can read more about them in today's story. Only a somewhat dubious anecdote suggests that the birds will fly near the highest of the highest peaks. But the new research indicates they are capable of flying in altitudes that would take them over Mount Everest, at least in terms of the birds' oxygen consumption. (The species that holds the highest flight record is the Ruppell's vulture, a scavenger in Africa that ascends to 36,000 feet, or more than six miles.) A few people asked me where the geese ended up after they flew in wind tunnels for this research. Jessica Meir and Julia York, the scientists who raised the birds at the University of British Columbia, said the geese were adopted out to a farm in Canada. The birds were not harmed in the wind tunnel experiments, Meir said. "They're living the good life out at pasture in British Columbia on a farm with a guy that had a lot of waterfowl and other birds." Meir hasn't seen them since their adoption, though she'd like to. Biologists who study imprinting behavior told her the birds would always recognize her. The geese instinctively imprinted on Meir and York, and they also learned how to fly with just a little coaxing. But they never learned to build nests. "Before I gave them up for adoption they became sexually mature, so they started having their own eggs," York said. "And they were just terrible at taking care of them." York's geese began to lay eggs essentially "wherever," she said. "I would watch them, and they would sit and incubate one egg for maybe an hour or so, and then they would get up and go sit on the other one." The retired school principal who adopted them told York he would build an aviary so the birds would have a safe place to lay their next clutch. | 
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