Subject: small Canada Goose
Date: Jan 8 11:27:38 2001
From: Andrew Engilis, Jr. - aengilisjr at ucdavis.edu


The variability of neck collars may be related to age in Aleutians. Many
birds of the year Aleutians can lack the neck collar. One good field
characteristic for Aleutian is the size of the nail on the bill, which is
both longer and more robust than Cackler, giving the bird a bumped look on
the tip. Another possibility might be a Richardson's Canada Goose (B. c.
hutchinsii), which is paler on the breast and also has a tad bigger bill
than Cackler. Richardson's is more common in the Central Flyway, but from
time to time they can stray, they have been recorded in Hawaii for
example). As a note the neck collar on Aleutians is unique when present
because it is clearly framed below by blackish brown feathers. This
"framing" is a lacking in Cacklers and Richardson's which both can have
neck collars. Some of the mid-sized birds can also have a neck collar
(Taverners). The best illustration of this framing for Aleutian is in
Sibley's book. There are no illustrations of juv. Aleutians, which can lack
a neck collar. Unfortunately loaner birds often have to go unidentified as
to subspecies.

Cheers --
Andy Engilis
University of California, Davis



At 08:05 PM 1/7/01 -0800, ian paulsen wrote:
>HI ALL:
> I found a small Canada Goose today here on Bainbridge Island that seems
>to me to be too grayish in color to be a Cackling Goose. I was thinking it
>might be a ALeutian Goose but it lacks the white neck collar. Does anyone
>have a really good reference on how to separate the two in the field?
>Sincerely
>
>Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen
>Bainbridge Is., WA, USA
>ipaulsen at linknet.kitsap.lib.wa.us
>"Rallidae all the way"