Rare Geese

Hundreds of Canada Geese often hang out in the Connecticut River, in the waters of the Retreat Meadows and the West River, and in the nearby pasture and cornfield. They did so through most of September, then disappeared. Now they are coming back.

Once in a while among those hundreds of Canada Geese which hang out in the Brattleboro waters, there will be a different goose. Last April there was one.

In mid-April the paired Canada Geese were beginning to nest, while the bachelor and bachelorette geese meandered around the waters and pasture. Among the unpaired geese was a Bar-Headed Goose. Smaller than the Canada Geese, the predominantly light gray Bar-headed Goose stood out among the flock. About two-thirds the size of the familiar geese, it was also stouter. The back of its neck was dark brown, the beak yellow, and the head white. The head was also marked with prominent black bars, hence its name.

Geese do not often get called beautiful. That is not fair, but by our species-centric aesthetic standards, geese just don’t measure up. Not so the Bar-headed Goose. It was a beautiful bird.

Most of the local birding community came around for a look, and some birders passing near Brattleboro stopped for a gander. But generally the response was rather muted, and that requires an explanation.

The Bar-headed Goose is native to Central Asia. It breeds on the high plateau north of the Himalayan peaks, then migrates over those peaks to winter in the Indian subcontinent. And that is the problem. How did the Bar-headed Goose get so far off course?

The answer is that it probably did not get off course. This goose adapts very well to captivity and, I am told, is a favored addition to waterfowl collections, especially in Europe and England. Our Bar-headed Goose had no leg band, but collectors often neglect to band their captive birds.

One inventive birder offered the following itinerary for the Bar-headed Goose in Brattleboro. It was a feral bird in England that hooked up with White-fronted Geese and flew north to Greenland. In Greenland it hooked up with Canada Geese and flew south to Brattleboro, where it was found by local birders in April - when most migrating geese are heading north. I need hardly say that there are more than a few problems with this explanation.

The most likely explanation is that the Bar-headed Goose was an escapee from some private collection or zoo in the United States. The Sibley Guide to Birds includes the Bar-headed Goose among “Exotic Waterfowl,” with this note: “Exotic species frequently escape from zoos and private collections; virtually any of the world’s wafterfowl species can occasionally be seen free-flying in North America.” At best, the rare bird records committee will designate Bar-headed Goose, “Origin Unknown.”

The Bar-headed Goose was around the Retreat waters for several weeks. Then it flew with a flock of Canada Geese to Sunset Lake, and from there to a pond in Wilmington. Then the Bar-headed Goose and the Canada Geese it was with, disappeared. Non breeding Canada Geese often fly north to Canada in the early summer for their molt, and it is a reasonable conclusion that the Bar-headed Goose went with them.

As unusual and distinctive as the Bar-headed Goose is, if it has survived and wanders anywhere in the proximity of North American bird watchers, it will undoubtedly be reported again.

Another rare goose which could show up in the Retreat waters is the Barnacle Goose, a close relative of the Canada Goose. The Barnacle Goose is smaller, pale gray with a black breast, white face and short bill. The white face and white eyebrow make it stand out, even at a distance. In recent years, the Barnacle Goose has been reported during the spring waterfowl migration at the Hinsdale roost just north of the Vernon Dam, and in nearby corn fields. I don’t recall any reports from the Retreat waters, but I would not rule it out.

The Barnacle Goose is European. It winters along the northern coasts of Europe and the United Kingdom, then goes north to breed on rocky coasts of arctic islands. In North America, the Barnacle Goose has been popular in zoos and private collections. The first Barnacle Goose I saw was at the Philadelphia Zoo - and, no, I did not life list it.

Birds escape from zoos and private collections, and for a long time it was assumed that any Barnacle Goose seen in North America was an escapee. There was considerable tension between life-listing birders who wanted another tick, and records committees who dismissed every report of the Barnacle Goose as an escapee, or origin unknown. The life-listers insisted that there were too many regular sightings among the flocks of migrating geese for all of them to be escapees. Their arguments were unpersuasive. The Barnacle Goose is European, insisted various rare bird records committees; it does not come to North America on its own.

Except that the Barnacle Goose does come to North America on its own. The proof came in October, 2005, when a hunter in Ontario shot a Barnacle Goose that has been banded in Scotland in November, 2004. This clearly established this particular goose as a wild bird, not an escapee. It also proved that the Barnacle Goose, like many other European birds, could occasionally make a wrong turn and end up in North America. At that point, records committees became more willing to accept Barnacle Goose sightings.

The Bar-headed Goose and the Barnacle Goose are handsome birds that will stand out in a flock of Canada Geese. The Bar-headed seen in our neighborhood last spring was an exotic escapee. The Barnacle, when it appears, is probably a bird whose GPS went awry. Though respectively “impossibly rare” and “very, very rare,” both are avian messages that encourage us to pause and to look at those abundant geese roosting in our waters.

Good birding!

Note: Photos of Barnacle Goose in the Hinsdale roost were taken by Terry Wright who was the first to find the goose in March, 2007, and post the sighting on the VTBIRD listserve. Terry gave me permission to use the photos then, and I hope his permission extends to the present use. Thank you Terry.

A Barnacle Goose Gets Our Local Birders Excited

A Barnacle Goose spent a few days in Vernon and Hinsdale last week. The Barnacle is a fairly common European goose which winters in the British Isles and northwestern Europe and breeds on arctic islands and coasts, including Iceland and Greenland. It is a rare vagrant to North America, and like most rare vagrants, precipitates “the chase” among birders. For our local birders, the Barnacle was a refreshing change of pace; they did not have to drive hours chasing a rare bird sighting. Instead, birders from hours away came here.

The Barnacle Goose was first sighted on Sunday on the Connecticut River above the Vernon Dam among several thousand waterfowl who were night roosting on the partially open waters. Mid-day Tuesday, I walked in to the bluff overlooking the roosting area on the New Hampshire side. It was a delightfully mild, sunny day. There were a couple thousand Canada Geese, and a variety of ducks, aggregating another thousand or two. I spent two hours enjoying the sun, sitting in the grass, and scanning the flocks. I did not find the Barnacle Goose. Near sunset, when even more birds had arrived at the night roost, other birders found the Barnacle Goose strutting across the ice.

I tried again the next day. Thousands of geese were feeding during the day in old cornfields along Riverside Road in Vernon. After about 45 minutes of unsuccessfully searching the flocks, a sharp young birder came walking down the lane and joined in the search. We moved about carefully, trying for angles which would allow us to see over the dips in the fields. Something spooked the geese, and a thousand or two birds roared into flight. But they did not depart. After whirling over the corn stubble, they gradually settled down. As they were doing so, the sharp young eyes next to me picked out the Barnacle Goose in flight, but lost it when the bird settled among the mass of Canada Geese.

The flock took flight a second time, and he picked it up in flight again. This time when the Barnacle returned to the ground, it was atop a rise and in view. Most of the time, the Barnacle was resting, with its head tucked. But it also stood erect so that we could see its white face, black neck and breast, the sharp contrast with the white belly contrasting with the gray back and wings. We could compare its size with the larger Canada Geese.

A few years ago I went chasing after a Barnacle Goose in Ipswich, Massachusetts. I chose the day after it was last reported, although I did not know that at the time. A couple of weeks later, I saw a Barnacle Goose. It was with a small group of native and exotic waterfowl meandering around a small pond at the Philadelphia Zoo. Obviously, that Barnacle was not a bird which I could count, but it illustrates the problem with some sightings of rare birds and with the Barnacle Goose (a popular bird in avian collections) in particular: Is the rare bird of wild origin, or is it an escapee?

The question arose immediately with the Barnacle Goose in Vernon/Hinsdale with an interesting and informative discussion on the VTBIRD listserve. In general, the decision of most Bird Record Committees has been to reject reports of the Barnacle Goose, or as in the case of the Vermont committee to label it “accepted origin unknown.”

This past history led one of the active participants in the discussion to suggest that bird record committees have gotten themselves into an unscientific bind; it is almost impossible to prove that an individual bird is a wild bird or an escapee. To reject the Barnacle Goose out of hand means that much behavioral evidence, migratory patterns, and documented vagrancy must be ignored.

Our Barnacle Goose turned up during the peak of waterfowl migration. The flocks were moving slowly northward as the ice went out of the river. Two days after I saw the barnie, most of the geese had gone. The Barnacle was with wild, far north nesting geese including many of the “lesser” subspecies of Canada Goose, and several each of Cackling Goose, Greater White-fronted Goose, and Snow Goose. With all other geese in the flock, it was nervous, taking wing with the masses on a whim. Wariness toward humans was especially evident. Even from several hundred yards away, the geese were alert to human movements. All of these factors suggest a “wild” origin.

In addition, those who were able to observe the Barnacle Goose more closely could see no signs of captivity, such as feather wear, leg bands, or unusual behavior from a bird unaccustomed roaming free.

The Barnacle Goose nests in northeastern Greenland, Iceland, and northern Norway. So does the Pink-footed Goose, a species that is rarely kept in captivity, and that in recent years has been reported in the Northeast with some regularity. The Northeast is also well outside of the normal migratory route for Ross’, Cackling, and Greater White-fronted Geese, but these species appear regularly in small numbers. In other words, vagrancy is not unexpected among arctic nesting species. The populations of many of these geese has increased in recent decades, which also means that increased vagrancy might be expected.

For the Barnacle Goose, which seems to cause particular consternation to bird record committees, there is hard evidence (that is, proof) that they occasionally stray to North America. In the fall of 2005 along the Ottawa River in Ontario, a hunter shot a Barnacle Goose with a leg band. The goose had been banded in November, 2004, as a juvenile male (first winter bird) in Scotland. One year later the bird strayed to North America where he inadvertently contributed to the current discussion.

This was not the first occurrence of definitive Barnacle vagrancy. In the fall of 1981 a Barnacle Goose was shot in Newfoundland which had been banded in July, 1977, on Spitsbergen, Norway.

On the other hand, an old-timer who entered the discussion remembered a pair of Barnacle Geese which were released, or escaped, at Grand Manan Island in 1990, produced four offspring and wintered in 90-91 in Nova Scotia and Massachusetts. He opined that such an incidence raises doubt about observations for a long time afterward.

Two state bird record committees will be evaluating the Barnacle Goose seen last week in Vernon (Vermont) and in the Connecticut River (New Hampshire). Vermont has several records of the Barnacle Goose, all with some qualification. If accepted, the Barnacle Goose would be a first record for New Hampshire. The weight of the discussion seems to come down on the side of this Barnacle Goose being a genuine wild bird which went astray - a true vagrant.

However, just suppose that one of the record committees accepts the Barnacle Goose, and the other rejects it, or qualifies its acceptance. There’s a conundrum.

For a couple of hours on a couple of delightful spring days, I went looking for the Barnacle Goose. I saw Killdeer running through the fields, hundreds of Horned Larks swirling about, thousands of blackbirds darkening tree tops, robins rattling across lawns, ducks diving in newly open ponds and foraging across old river ice. The sun was warm. The wind was brisk. The birding was good. The Barnacle Goose made it just a little bit better.

Photos of Barnacle Goose in open water and on the ice in the Connecticut River just above the Vernon/Hindale Dam. Photos were taken by Terry Wright who was the first to find the goose and post the sighting on the VTBIRD listserve. Thank you Terry for permission to use your photos.