Contributor
Date
Location
- Age and sex
- Immature Unknown sex - X
Observation details
Continuing immature that is aged as such by the black tip to the bill, and the minimal white front. This bird has been identified as the expected Greenland race with input from Mark Szantyr and Marshall Iliff. Field marks such as bill color and the darkness of the head and neck are good for flavirostris. These were able to be confirmed by good color and lighting in the photos. This individual also lacks the slender-necked and paler appearance of an American ssp bird. While an immature bird may not show every possible field mark for identifying this form, I am confident in the ID after thorough research and photo comparisons. Below is the response from Marshall Iliff that explains the field marks stated above, as well as the scarcity of this age group in the Northeast, especially without a family group: Aidan, I agree 1) First-winter; 2) Greenland. The color in these photos is excellent and makes bill color easy to assess and falls clearly in the Greenland range I'd say. The neck thickness and color also seem good for Greenland here. To be sure, these can be really tough and I have seen and photographed some well that I leave unassigned. But this one seems like a clear Greenland. Indeed, it does seem to be true that 1) Most tend to be adults; 2) Juveniles tend to occur in family groups. But, as with this bird and several others, they do occur from time to time -- https://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S7787763. This is generally true for most geese, that the young birds tend to occur with adults and it is rare that they get split up and occur solo. This obviously is unlike most vagrants where the young birds occur out of range way more often than adults. Best, Marshall
Technical information
- Model
- NIKON D500
- ISO
- 1000
- Focal length
- 500 mm
- Flash
- Flash did not fire
- f-stop
- f/5.6
- Shutter speed
- 1/500 sec
- Dimensions
- 3908 pixels x 2663 pixels
- Original file size
- 1.55 MB