Photos: Spring bird hunting in Bethel

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Leighana Chaney went hunting with her father, Buzz Chaney, about 7 miles outside of Bethel on Thursday, April 30, 2015. They got geese and a swan. The two pictured are greater white-fronted geese. She took them out of the game bag when a reporter asked to see them.

BETHEL -- One night after work last week, Pat Samson of Bethel rode his four-wheeler over a bumpy, muddy and in some spots nearly impassable tundra trail a few miles out of town. He was on a goose hunt, one of his favorite things.

He brought along the bare essentials: a 20-gauge shotgun, high-end binoculars, a hatchet, a piece of plywood so he wouldn't get soaked lying in wait on the spongy wet tundra.

He considered a smoother route down the Kuskokwim River and across frozen lakes and sloughs. But everything is melting, the ice turning jagged and rotten.

When the thaw makes travel challenging, when pussy willows are in bloom, and especially when migratory birds begin to dot the big sky, it's spring on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

The return of millions of birds -- white-fronted geese and snow geese, mallards and loons, sandhill cranes and tundra swans -- signals the arrival of spring and the start of a remarkable rural Alaska bird hunt.

It's the only authorized spring and summer migratory bird hunt in the country. Unlike the fall hunt, it operates with liberal rules -- no daily bag limit, no seasonal limit. It's only allowed in Alaska's rural areas including the Bering Strait region around Nome, the Bristol Bay region and the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

READ MORE: Spring bird hunt brings hope of fresh meat after a long Alaska winter