Igor

Igor is the name given to one of Amy Alden's rescued Canada geese. He was born with a limp and always lingered behind the flock. Amy first thought of calling him "Gimpy," but her uncle David proposed the name Igor, inspired by Frankenstein's assistant. Amy liked it, and the name stuck. Igor often stayed behind during lifts off, and had to be pushed to fly away. He was hit by Amy's aircraft during an excursion and fell into the forest. The Aldens looked for him all night and finally found him alive but missing primary feathers, making it impossible for him to take part in the migration. He was tied up behind Amy in her old baby carrier and traveled with his siblings this way. He came back on his own the following spring. Background Information There was an actual Igor involved in Bill Lishman's second successful migration operation with Canada geese. The bird was born with a misshapen head and a slight limp and was also named after the Frankenstein character. Igor was lost during the migration as he joined a flock of wild geese along the way. He was found by a Pennsylvania couple who had taken interest in the operation and brought back to his flock which drove him off at first, in part because he hadn't been neckbanded like them on their stop to Doctor William Sladen's bird center in Airlie, Virginia. When he received his neckband, Igor was assimilated back into the flock. When the flock returned to Ontario in the Spring, he was spotted alone near Niagara Falls, which was a big detour from the learned route. Lishman thought he would get him and bring him back, but Igor came back home on his own after all, to which Lishman humorously concluded that the gander had always wanted to see the falls.

Another gander named Crash, which the Operation Migration crew suspected of being partially blind, would often crash into power poles and be lost during practice flights, forcing the team to look for him by road and truck him back home. During the official migration flight, Crash was spotted way behind the flock and the team thought they would lose him, but he joined them a while later.

Fly Away Home's limping Igor simply happened, as one of the goslings used for filming was born lame, and all these elements were condensed to create a single character.