Subject: Re: Canada Goose Subspecies Question
Date: Oct 25 17:30:51 1995
From: Jon Anderson - anderjda at dfw.wa.gov


Randy,

It seems that from your description, they could be Cackling Canadas. The
breast feathering of this race is brown to almost a purplish-brown (in
the sun), and the neck and bill appear very stubby. The legs will also
seem relatively short (not as much as that of a Welsh Corgi, but short).
This race is not too common around the Sound, but we did see a flock of
about 30 at Nisqually NWR during the '94 XMas Count.

The 'small' races such as Taverner's, Lesser, or Aleutian Canada will
have somewhat darker breasts than the local Western/Great Basins, and the
legs and bills will have an appropriate length for the birds' size.
These races (the Tavs and Lessers) aren't all that common here, either,
but now is the time that they are migrating down to the lower Columbia
and Oregon's Willamette Valley. The Aleutians are also migrating south
now, and tend to move along the coast, stopping at various places along
the coast to feed.

It's always a good idea to check for marked birds in these flocks. Some
Taverners have been banded and marked with plastic neck collars (I
believe gray with black alpha-numerics) and some Aleutians were
historically marked with alpha-numeric plastic *leg* bands.

Jon. Anderson
Olympia, WA
anderjda at dfw.wa.gov


On Tue, 24 Oct 1995, Randy Deardorff wrote:

> This Sunday (10/22) at Damon Point, there was a group of about 20
> Canada Geese on the central pond. With them, were 6 individuals of
> one of the smaller subspecies. I've never seen any of these before,
> at least not so closely associated with the larger geese, where their
> smaller size was so obvious.
>
> They seemed to be a bit more than half the size of the larger geese.
> Definitely bigger than Mallards, which were also present. Their
> breasts were darker than their bigger cousins, with a warm brown cast.
> There was no white neck ring. The white cheek-patches seemed
> narrower, even slightly pointed.
> Any ideas?