While overall numbers aren’t huge there seem to be some interesting geese within Suffolk County this past week.
Adding to the already reported birds of interest, today there were two adult GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GEESE on Belmont Lake in North Babylon (Suffolk), despite an overall low number of Canada Geese. I took a ride up through St. Charles Cemetery and some of the nearby ball fields but came up empty. Yesterday there were two CACKLING GEESE on Centerport Pond in Centerport. Both birds appeared to be classic Richardson’s. Prior to my Centerport Pond visit I stopped by Millers Pond in Smithtown where I recorded at least 31 collared birds all part of the West Greenland Canada Goose banding program. Millers Pond has proven to be one of the favored migratory stopovers for the vast majority of birds collared in this program. Of great interest to me was Michael McBrien’s post describing the four interesting Cackling Geese he observed on Riley Avenue in Calverton. The description of Michael’s birds strongly fit a Cackling-type goose I observed and photographed on November 22nd at Hecksher State Park. It appeared as anything but a typical Richardson’s goose and aspects of the bird seem to support Taverner’s Cackling Goose (B. h. tavernerii), one of the four recognized subspecies of Cackling Goose of Alaskan origins that spends it’s winters in Washington and Oregon (currently thought to be very rare east of the Rockies). I solicited some feedback from an avid west coast goose observer who agrees that the Hecksher bird looks good for Taverner’s. This is encouraging but the reality is that this bird’s origins will likely never be pinned down. The white-cheeked goose complex is complicated and is still a long way from being well understood. The potential for hybridization also further complicates matters but I think this reiterates the importance for us to look carefully and cautiously at suspect Cackling Geese and to thoroughly document these birds when the opportunity presents itself. Here is a link to some photographs of today’s white-fronts and the 11/22 Cackling Goose: https://www.flickr.com/photos/39025168@N07/ <https://www.flickr.com/photos/39025168@N07/> R.I.P. Ross’s Goose Best, Derek Rogers Sayville -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
