On Sun, 23 Oct 1994, Gary DuVall wrote:
>
> White head, dark eye, pink bill, white neck and white under tail. Back
> and wings were pale tan, with occasional dark feather tips. Orange legs.
> This goose was in the company of about 15 other Canada Geese, and seemed
> to prefer the company of another abnormal goose which had a brownish
> neck, smooth tan cheek patch, and bill and legs of a "sort of mustard-grey"
> color. I'll have photographs in a couple of days.

>
> Question: How can you differentiate an "albino" goose from a possible
> hybrid? I've seen many geese with various degrees of white mottling on
> the neck and head, and occasionally various obvious hybrid specimens, but
> this is the first time I've ever seen one that looked like this. To put
> the question another way, is this a probable hybrid of Canada and the
> white domestic goose (not Greylag)?

These geese are hybrids with the big domestic goose also seen in
the flock. This goose has had successful offspring with the Canada Geese
for at least two years (1992,1993), I don't know if there were any new
ones this summer. The easiest way to tell these from an albino or
leucistic Canada Goose is the head shape and leg shape. All the hybrids
I see at the Fill have the big head and bill of the domestic goose, with
short fat legs. One is very funny looking, with part of its body in CAGO
plumage and the other part in domestic plumage. Looks like it was glued
together from spare parts.

On another note, the Fill had an interesting collection Sat. morning.
The lake seemed to be full of winter birds: Canvasback, Bufflehead,
etc., but the central pond had fall migrants still: LB Dowitcher, L
Sandpiper, G Yellowlegs, and a Pipit. Two adult Red-tails in the same
tree, too.

____________________________
Mike Smith
Univ. of Washington, Seattle
whimbrel at u.washington.edu