Contributor
Date
Location
- Age
- Not specified
- Sex
- Not specified
Observation details
In field with CANG off of Haggett and County Road. Assuredly same individual as seen twenty minutes prior in Adamant. Found a second time by Chip Darmstadt. In the same flock of geese that had the CANG with the white streak on the head, which makes me think it was the same goose. White face, blackish neck. Very distinguishable from surrounding CANG (and possible CACK; I didn't look). Barred black belly, gray-brown colouration. Black fringe to the white-front. Pinkish beak. Black eye. Eating corn. I am unable to note the subspecies for this bird. Birds of the World (https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/gwfgoo/cur/systematics) gives contradictory information, confusing A. albifrons elgasi and gambelli. Pyle and Palmer are also not entirely helpful; they can't agree on the spelling of gambeli, for one. Good luck to anyone who tries to identify this one down to subspecies, you're a better birder than I. Anyway, it's mostly clinal. Update: I looked into this much more intensely, and think my earlier understanding of contradictory information was likely a misreading - taxonomy for this bird is a mess. I believe this is a Greenlandic, ssp. flavirostris, bird. The bill is long and orange, not pink, and lacks the stubby nature of albifrons. Generally, flavirostris is agreed to be the most common vagrant to the East Coast in the winter. There have been several sightings of Western birds, gambelli/sponsa, in New England, but these all have pink bills, and a wider white hip line (hard to see the hip line on this bird). Other features of this bird which are clear is it's size and darkness - it seems relatively large compared to some albifrons I have seen, and darker.
Additional species
Technical information
- Model
- NIKON D500
- Lens
- 200.0-500.0 mm f/5.6
- ISO
- 1000
- Focal length
- 500 mm
- Flash
- Flash did not fire
- f-stop
- f/5.6
- Shutter speed
- 1/200 sec
- Dimensions
- 2048 pixels x 1365 pixels
- Original file size
- 2.68 MB