>I think that I misaddressed my message of 10/22/94; here' a repeat.
>
>A bird similar to the one described by Dennis Paulson (10/21) turned up
>at the Montlake Fill on Sat., Oct. 22.
>
>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)?
>
>Gary DuVall <gduvall at eskimo.com>

I can reply readily to Gary, as I just saw his birds (the white one and the
funny one) at Montlake Fill on Sunday 23 Oct. The white one to me is either
a domestic goose or a hybrid with most of the qualities of a domestic,
because it is big and portly. The other bird surely is a Canada x domestic
(=Greylag) hybrid. The one I saw west of Fife was slender and proportioned
just like a Canada, although colored much like the bird at Montlake.
Someone needs to catch all these odd birds (which are frequent around
Seattle, I think) and get DNA samples.

Montlake was hopping on Sunday morning (with birders as well as birds),
with an imm. Green Heron, an adult Greater Yellowlegs, 2 juv. Pectoral
Sandpipers, an adult Northern Shrike (which shared the top of a willow at
the watery pond with a male kingfisher!), and a flock of meadowlarks. Still
migrating White-crowned, Lincoln's and Savannah sparrows and Yellow-rumped
Warblers.


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