Sorry for the late post, but in the afternoon I saw the Cackling Goose at Inwood Hill Park, in upper Manhattan that James Knox found this morning. The goose flock was no longer on the baseball fields along Seaman Avenue. The birds were then on the lawns at the north end of the park in from the corner of 218th Street and Indian Road. The bird was on the edge of the Canada goose flock feeding on the lawn. I went into my apartment to get my camera and when I came out the birds were all gone. One of my neighbors told me that some woman had allowed her child to chase all the geese and the geese had gone over to the adjacent mudflats. I was able to refind the Cackling on the mudflats away from most of the Canada Geese.
I expected this bird to be the same individual that was in Inwood last winter, but I am not at all sure it is. It is a very dark, almost "dirty" looking bird. It appears to match the subspecies minima in the field guides. Obviously, last year's individual would have done gone through a molt since then, but it was not as dark as this bird. Joe DiCostanzo www.greatgullisland.org -- 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/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/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/ --
