Tweets,

It does seem strange however that local Snow Geese, presumably from
Wrangell Island nesting area in the high tundra should be stained like
taiga nesting Trumpeters and not like tundra nesting Tundra Swans?

Gene Hunn.

On Mon, 27 Feb 1995, Michael Price wrote:

> Hi Tweeters
>
> re: stained Trumpeter Swans (TRUS) and unstained Tundra Swans (TUSW).
>
> Coincidentally, a local observer in Vancouver BC, Brian Self, queried about
> the same thing. He said he noted last weekend that all the circa 600 TRUS
> he saw in the fields of Ladner and Delta were stained, the 40-odd TUSW
> unsullied, and could that be used as a fieldmark? In my most authoritative
> tone I said I didn't know offhand but I'd do some research on it and get
> back to him. Then came Dennis' post about it. Phew.
>
> Dennis also had a query about a possible analog between unstained Tundra
> Swans and Trumpeter Swans and unstained Ross' Goose (ROGO) and stained Snow
> Goose (SNGO).
>
> Our experience in Vancouver BC in the last few years with three separate
> ROGO's at the Reifel Refuge is that they maintained clean plumage where the
> SNGO's were mostly stained. Daily, the ROGO's all stayed put in fields,
> usually with some Canada Geese, while the several thousand SNGO's that had
> been feeding there picked up and went out the foreshore to feed on other
> stuff or party or whatever it was they did outside the Refuge besides
> dodging shotgun pellets.
>
> In a similar process to the iron-staining of feathers is the staining of
> pages in old books, resulting in spots of similar color wherever an
> iron-crystal in the page oxidised (the iron being in solution in the water
> used in the pulping process, I'd hazard). The term used to describe this
> spotting is 'foxing', from the color.
>
> Just goes to show from what little acorns our terminology grows: if the
> bibliophile who originated the term had been a bird enthusiast, rather than
> riding to hounds, the process would likely have been called 'goosing'.
>
> Dodged one there, alright.
>
> Michael Price
> Vancouver BC Canada
> michael_price at mindlink.bc.ca
>
>
>