Hi

There is a similar canada goose at the olympic game farm in Sequim...I
haven't been there for several weeks, but have seen this odd Canada goose
3-4 times. The new Sibley bird bood talks about "variant" plumage on Canada
geese with various mounts of white on their heads, from additional white to
very little or no white.. The one I saw also looked like a barnacle goose,
but was the large western canada goose size.

Betty Boyd
chimacum, wa
critrhse at olypen.com
----- Original Message -----
From: Larry & Jacque Goodhew <lgoodhew at clearwater.net>
To: <inland-NW-birders at uidaho.edu>
Cc: <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2000 1:38 PM
Subject: Odd Goose


> Hi!
> We decided to bird the Walla Walla region today. John and Sue
> Rogers joined us. Our first stop was the Stateline Pond on Highway
> 125 a quarter of a mile north of the Oregon border.
> There were many Canada Geese, two of them were very different.
> At first we thought they were Barnacle Geese, the face pattern on one
> was a perfect match but the black neck extended only to the breast,
> not low on the breast as in a Barnacle Goose. The other bird had a
> Barnacle face pattern on one side of its head, and a standard Canada
> Goose on the other side. j
> Also on the pond were Mallards, American Widgeons, Ring-necked
> Ducks and one Western Grebe, the first we have ever observed on this
> pond. In the trees beside the pond was a standard looking Red-tailed
> Hawk and a VERY dark-phase one.
> We drove east into the wheat land south-east of Walla Walla, we
> picked up several more Red-tailed Hawks, including a Rufous-morph
> form.
> Near Russel Creek Road we found 2 Northern Shrikes, many
> California Quail and Dark-eyed Juncos, 1 Song Sparrow, several
> Black-capped Chickadees and Northern Flickers, 1 Northern Goshawk, a
> flock of several hundred Red-winged Blackbirds, 4 (late fall or very
> early spring) Western Bluebirds.
> We continued on east up Russel Creek Road, we found 9 Wild
> Turkeys, these flew up the hillside, it was really neat to see them
> fly with their tails all spread out like a beautiful fan.
> Along Mill Creek we found 2 American Dippers and 1 Great Blue
> Heron. North of Mill Creek at the head of Spring Creek Road, we came
> on 2 small groups of Gray Partridge for a total of 11 birds.
> Other birds seen on the trip:
> Black-billed Magpie
> Starling
> Rock Dove
> Robin
> House Sparrow
> Mourning Dove
> House Finch
> A good time was had by all!
> Larry and Jacque Goodhew from Walla Walla
>