Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 11:44:42 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Marshall Iliff Subject: Re: Barnacle Goose Reports MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit MDOsprey, Paul O'Brien offers some good tips on Barnacle Goose identification. One other extremely important field mark, which eliminates most hybrids, is the BLACK breast. Note that Canada, White-fronted, Greylag, and several other geese and their respective hybrids have pale breasts. Barnacle and Brant both have black breasts. The closest I've come to seeing a Baranacle Goose in the wild were three hybrids in Pueblo, CO, a few years back, that had apparently mated with small Canada Geese or something to make Barnacle Goose-sized hybrid things. The face pattern was a bit off but otherwise they looked mostly like Barnacles. Best, Marshall Iliff miliff@aol.com Annapolis, MD > All, > > Just be careful with possible Barnacle Geese at Blackwater. On several > occasions I have seen Canada/White-fronted Goose hybrids there with variable > amounts of white in the face. Clearly there is much more to the ID than a > white face, but sometimes you can't see much more than that when the geese > are crowded together. Shape and pattern of the white would be the best > indicator. > > Good luck. > > Paul O'Brien > Rockville, Mont. Co., MD > pobrien776@aol.com > > ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================