Date: Sun, 29 Feb 2004 17:26:18 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Joel Martin Subject: Snow GEESE at Centennial Lake MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This afternoon I finally went to look for the Snow Goose at Centennial Lake in Howard County, and was surprised to find multiple Snow Geese. The first bird I saw was an immature white morph Greater Snow Goose, apparently the one that's been there for some time. Associating with it were two distinctly smaller blue morph Lesser Snow Geese. If that weren't enough, there were two more very odd-looking dark geese; the size of the lessers but completely dark, blotchy gray all over, but with the typical pinnated scapulars of a Snow Goose. The head and neck were completely dark but with a white eye ring shaped somewhat like that of a female Wood Duck. The bill was narrower than a typical Snow Goose, with a curved culmen, and very dark with a pinkish tip. Are these juveniles? melanistic? hybrid? When the birds swam, it was the blue geese in the lead, followed by the mystery birds, with the Greater in the rear. They were on the north side of the lake between the islands and the tennis courts. Joel Martin Catonsville, MD jcdlmartin@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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================