I was back out at South Twin Lake (Calhoun County) again today. I saw a large raft of what I decided at the time were snow geese, both white and dark forms. But when I got home and looked more closely at my Sibley guide, I'm questioning my ID. The white birds certainly seem to match the white form of Snow Geese, but the dark ones do not match adult dark-form geese. Instead, they were all black or dark grey, they did not have a white head or neck. This fits a juvenile snow goose, but the Sibley guide gives a month range when they would look this way, and the end of that range is January. Plus, NONE of the dark ones had white heads. [I'm still getting used to the Sibley guide's layout, so in the field I missed that the completely dark forms were juveniles)
They weren't Brandts, as there was no necklace, nor was the "stern" white. It looked like there was a lighter grey or brownish "mask" on the face of these dark birds. The face pattern looked the most like that in the illustration of a female black scoter. But if I'm reading things right, scoters should be smaller than Snow Geese, which is still my best guess for the white birds. The dark and white birds were the same size, so that seems to rule out scoters. I didn't get any photos, as they seemed too far away. If I get a chance to go back tomorrow or Saturday I'll see if I can manage a photo or two, if they're still there. Any ideas? Lorinda H. M. Hoover, OSL [email protected] --- Please contribute your sightings to our list; it is only as good as members make it! --- Birding channel recommendation for FRS/GMRS radio use: Primary selection; channel 5/0 , alternate selection; channel 6/0 --- This mailing list is sponsored by the Iowa Ornithologists' Union. Membership available on-line at http://www.iowabirds.org/iou/membership.asp. ----- You are currently subscribed to ia-bird as: [email protected]
