Ross's Goose - 20 Apr 2021

The Ross's Goose I found a few weeks ago at Pt. Mouillee had been relocated several times the past few days. First, it was seen at Lake Erie Metropark, then again at Pt. Mouillee. Today, it was refound at LEMP near the Wave Pool. I decided to swing by on the way home from work to see if it was still around. With snowfall expected tonight it might decide to move on.

I parked near the foot bridge south of the Wave Pool and hiked over it to find the Ross's Goose feeding in the grass among several Canada Geese. With snow falling pretty heavily I spent some time digiscoping it from about 50' away. The Sony a9 did a terrific job grabbing focus at ISO 400.

Note the small goose to the right of the Ross's Goose above. It appears to be a Cackling Goose! I've been waffling back and forth on calling it due to its size relative to the Ross's Goose, but others are not hesitating on calling it a Cackler. A search of Birdweb.org (https://birdweb.org/birdweb/bird/cackling_goose) indicates that the 11 subspecies of Canada Geese (separated largely on size and range) has been split to lump the 4 smallest subspecies into Cackling Goose.