A pair of Barnacle Geese was found by Stephanie & Tom Schmidt among hundreds of
Canada Geese on a pond (known by some as Lincourt Wetland), about 9 miles
southeast of Utica on Cedarville Rd, Litchfield Township, Herkimer County. That
was on Monday 24 October, and they continued to be seen there for several days.
I went there with some friends (Gary, Ann, & Susan) on Saturday 29 October,
arriving about 10:40am. Unfortunatelyt the rare geese left around 8:45 that
morning and have not been reported since, at least not to eBird. We looked at
as much of the pond as we could see from the road, we scanned flocks of flying
geese, we traveled nearby roads hoping to find geese feeding, but with no luck.
We had to leave the area around 2pm.
I suggested to Ann that perhaps the geese did and would return later in the
afternoon, even though we had no eBird reports to support this theory. In fact,
we heard one account to contradict it. Still, we tried again this afternoon,
arriving shortly after 2pm in steady rain. There were a few hundred Canadas but
no obvious Barnacle Geese.
We backtracked to Roberts Rd near Albany Rd for a closer look at another pond:
It held some Canadas, but it was by no means full. We looked for likely fields
in places we missed the day before: all were deserted. We returned to the
erstwhile Barnacle Goose pond at 3:20pm, and instead of geese flying in we saw
geese flying out bearing generally southeast. I saw one Greater White-fronted
Goose just before it took flight.
We looked at Unadilla Lake by Millers Mills and found Canada Geese but not an
impressive number.
Checking maps for water farther to the southeast, we set our sights on
Canadarago Lake south of Richfield Springs in Otsego County. Our first view
from NYS-28 was of a vast empty expanse of water. Rather than circumnavigating
this lake to check all possible angles, nor did we visit 3 ponds east of
Richfield Springs, we backtracked for a final check of the Cedarville Road
pond, and were shocked to find it practically empty, with only about 30 Canada
Geese remaining at 4:30pm. Do they return even later? Were they ousted by a
loud engine in a nearby yard, or have the migrated?
The only gathering of geese we found which seemed to have decent numerical odds
of harboring the Barnacle Geese was on the south side of US-20 just west of
Brighton Road, where many hundreds of Canada Geese were in green fields and
marsh-ringed ponds. Flocks flew due east a short distance to a corn-stubbled
hilltop only partially visible from a single spot on US-20, again on the south
side. This is a mile or so west of Richfield Springs.
If anyone else wants to continue the search, I hope this provides some ideas.
—Dave Nutter
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