Subject: Re: Ocean Shores, Tokeland, etc.
Date: Sep 5 09:18:00 1995
From: Dennis Paulson - dpaulson at ups.edu


Burt Guttman wrote:

In a little flock of Canada Geese at the golf course were two very
>peculiar geese. One I judged at the time to be very much like a hybrid
>Canada x blue-morph Snow, and when I got home I checked my references for
>information about hybrids with Canadas; Madge and Burn, _Waterfowl_, note
>that rare hybrids of this kind have been reported. This goose had a
>diluted Canada head and neck, as if a Canada had been somewhat bleached;
>its bill and legs were pink, rather than black; tail feathers white, and
>the body as a whole a somewhat patchy, nondescript gray. The second
>goose had the same pink bill and legs, white tail feathers, and even
>patchier gray and white body, neck, and head. My impression was that
>this is what might result from a backcross between a hybrid like the
>first goose and a Snow, of either morph. These two birds stayed
>together, and I might even suggest that they were a parent and an
>offspring of the year migrating together.

Sounds like hybrid Canada x domestic goose to me, very much like a variety
of birds I have seen regularly in Seattle for years. The Canadas down at
Ocean Shores are now predominantly from the introduced _B. c. moffitti_
population (except when occasional flocks of migrants touch down), and they
seem easily to become enamored of domestic geese (or vice versa), being not
too far from domestics themselves. Wild hybrids are probably a lot less
likely, especially if they were really _moffitti_, which doesn't breed in
the range of any other goose.

Dennis Paulson, Director 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