Chuck's goose yesterday may well have been a different bird. There have been several apparent small Chen x Branta hybrids among the 20,000+ geese that have made the rounds through southeastern Larimer County. At least one of these had a Ross' type bill. Keep in mind that the curviture at the base of the bill may be a Branta (i.e. Canada, Cackling, Brant, Barnacle) characteristic rather than a Chen (i.e. Snow, Ross's, Emperor) characteristic so it should not necessarily be used to determine the Chen parentage to species. I'll try to get some better photo documentation of these odd birds in the Fort Collins area (Prospect Ponds Natural Area is a good spot for them) in the coming weeks. In the meantime, three of them are posted at http://www.pbase.com/quetzal/hybridgoose02012009.
Nick Komar Fort Collins CO ----- Original Message ----- From: Charles Hundertmark Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 8:28 AM Subject: [cobirds] Dark morph Chen genus goose at Stearn's Lake, Boulder County Late yestereday afternoon, I returned to Stearn's Lake to relocate the goose that I identified on Sunday as a dark morph Ross's Goose. I had not considered the possibility of a hybrid and wanted to recheck the identification.... ...they might have been different birds, but the likelihood of two small Chen-like dark morph geese in the same flock of Brantas seems low. Chuck Hundertmark --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
