> Dan Victor <dvictor at u.washington.edu> Seattle, WA
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Tue, 29 Nov 94 16:36:39 -0800
>
>a colleague of mine saw a bar-headed goose in the columbia river basin
>this past weekend. the bird was located with a flock of approximately
>100 canada geese on a grassy area at stevens, just off rock creek
>drive. since there seems to be a group of people headed down to see the
>ross's gull, they may want to see the bar-headed goose also and decide
>if it is an escapee or a lost migrant.

The natural range of the Bar-headed Goose is sufficiently far from the east
coast of Asia (they breed east to Manchuria and winter on the northern part
of the Indian subcontinent) that they are unlikely (although not totally
impossible) vagrants in North America. Also, their populations have
declined considerably, as has happened with Baikal Teals and other species
that seem increasingly unlikely to vagrantize in this direction (I make no
apologies for adding still another word to the English language, having as
much right to do it as anyone else). The species is commonly kept in
captivity, and it is surely among a list of species for which natural
vagrancy to this continent is unlikely to be even suspected unless one
turns up way out in the Aleutian Islands or somewhere in Alaska far from
where an escaped captive would be likely to appear. I'm not sure how likely
escaped captives, say in the lower 48, would be to retain a migratory urge
that would take them north in the breeding season to some high-latitude
part of the continent. There have been several seen in different parts of
western Washington over the last few decades. A lovely bird, by the way,
worth seeing out in nature even if you can't tick it off.

Dennis Paulson phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416