Hi Peter and all, Two facts have been known for a long time but seem consistently neglected in the conventional wisdom:
1. Richardson's Goose has occurred in the Northeast for a long time (old specimen records), it is increasing in abundance and distribution, and it is highly variable.. 2. Despite lots of talk, parvipes is not known to occur in the Northeast (no NYS specimen records from the pre-split days, unlike Richardson's). Discussions of the kind surrounding the Central Park goose arise all the time, frequently enough that I think they need to be framed better. Typically, the starting point is perplexity over a bird that resembles a Richardson's Goose in several ways, but deviates in some way (usually body size or bill size). I don't have time to compile my notes in detail right now, but I found some relevant verbiage in my outbox, from a discussion of a larger-than-expected Richardson's type from Bergen, NJ, back in January 2010: “I think people's idea of what a 'standard-issue' Richardson's Goose looks like has been skewed by its perceived rarity, so that the smallest, most extreme individuals have been reported/identified disproportionately in our region. On LI, we have often found obvious (= extreme) Richardson's Geese in the company of somewhat larger but otherwise essentially identical individuals. Data from the breeding grounds show that male Richardson's Geese, while smaller than Canada Geese, are by no means always tiny. I have argued that the conservative approach to larger-than-expected birds showing the characters of this taxon in our region is Richardson's until proven otherwise. That is, the burden of proof has shifted to those who suggest that parvipes Lesser Canada Geese occur at all regularly in our region." Having said all this, I agree that the Central Park bird's bill seems very large for a Richardson's. But that's just one character. On the pro Richardson's side is a very important field mark that we worked out in the early years of this era of gossaging: dorsal contour. Richardson's Geese have long wings in proportion to their body size. At rest, the peak of the back rises close to the front end of the body (often in a distinct little hump), then drops back in a long straight line, or even a slightly concave line, through the relatively long (usually pale) tertials. Furthermore, the tertials account for a larger proportion of the length of the dorsal contour. In contrast, in Canada Goose, the dorsal contour is better described as a hemispheric dome, peaking farther back, at the middle of the body, and appearing evenly rounded. Shai Mitra Bay Shore ________________________________________ From: [email protected] [[email protected]] on behalf of Peter Post [[email protected]] Sent: Monday, February 15, 2016 2:55 PM To: [email protected] cornell Subject: [nysbirds-l] Central Park Goose. An Experts Opinion Jean Irons kindly forwarded my query concerning the Id of the Central Park goose to goose expert Ken Abraham. His opinion is that it is a Cackling Goose (B. hutchinsii). Details below: Peter Post Begin forwarded message: From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Date: February 15, 2016 11:09:48 AM EST To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: Re: [BIRDWG01] goose ID Reply-To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Hi Peter, We asked goose expert Ken Abraham to comment. Please see below. “It’s difficult to tell what this bird is, other than that it is smaller white-cheeked goose than the associated birds (which are likely large Canada Geese of the local breeding population). The bill is the obvious character trait that doesn’t fit the birder’s conventional wisdom that a cackling goose must have a short, stubby, triangular bill. This is not the case. Photographs of breeding geese from Southampton Island and western Hudson Bay coast of Nunavut deemed to be B. hutchinsii show a variety of bill shapes, including ones that look like the bird in this observation. There is also a fairly large variation in B. hutchinsii body size from the Nunavut-Manitoba border to Baffin Island (larger in the south approaching the low end of the B. c. interior size range). My usual caveat about identification of any eastern white-cheeked goose as a Lesser Canada Goose B. c. parvipes is that such a bird would be exceedingly exceedingly rare based on all known band recoveries from the restricted breeding range of B. c. parvipes as it understood since the revision of thinking about species and subspecies in the 2004 A.O.U. split. Current thinking is that B. c. parvipes is restricted to Alaska, and that the small white cheeked geese across the Canadian arctic from Yukon to Nunavut are B. hutchinsii. The observer of this bird may not be aware of this (and frankly most people aren’t because some of the information isn’t published or widely available). Thus, as a conservative thinker on this issue of small white-cheeked geese, I would call this bird a B. hutchinsii variant.” Ron Pittaway and Jean Iron Toronto ON Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2016 11:28:03 -0500 From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: [BIRDWG01] goose ID To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> I photographed this goose, yesterday, 13 February, on the Central Park Reservoir, New York City. I would appreciate comments concerning ID. I'm leaning toward B. canadensis parvipes. Thanks. Photos can be found here: http://www.ardithbondi.com/page127.html Peter Post New York City, NY Archives: http://listserv.ksu.edu/archives/birdwg01.html Archives: http://listserv.ksu.edu/archives/birdwg01.html -- NYSbirds-L List Info: Welcome and Basics<http://www.northeastbirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME> Rules and Information<http://www.northeastbirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES> Subscribe, Configuration and Leave<http://www.northeastbirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm> Archives: The Mail Archive<http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html> Surfbirds<http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L> BirdingOnThe.Net<http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html> Please submit your observations to eBird<http://ebird.org/content/ebird/>! -- ________________________________ Support CSI students each time you shop with Amazon Smile<https://smile.amazon.com/ch/13-3683723> -- 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/ --
