I was at Pennington Flash on sunday and whilst at Tom Edmondson Hide, I heard a great commotion as two geese winged in. One was a Canada, but its companion was rather different. It was a grey goose, roughly the same size as the Canada, with a white head and a 'messy' join between the white upper neck and grey lower neck. Unfortunately, because I'm a bit clueless, I didn't take a close look at the bird and just wrote it off as some sort of aberrant, or maybe a farmyard goose.
Then I learned a valuable lesson! A couple of days later, I came across pictures of Snow Geese, which I had never seen or heard of before, and was startled by the similarity between the images of dark morph Snow Geese and the bird I'd seen at Pennington.
Could any wiser heads tell me a bit more about Snow Geese? How big are they? Are they likely to be seen in company with Canadas? Is there a feral population of these birds in the UK?
Thanks!
Its a mongrel graylag that has been around penny for a few years,normally with the Canadas at the car park.
I was at Pennington Flash on sunday and whilst at Tom Edmondson Hide, I heard a great commotion as two geese winged in. One was a Canada, but its companion was rather different. It was a grey goose, roughly the same size as the Canada, with a white head and a 'messy' join between the white upper neck and grey lower neck. Unfortunately, because I'm a bit clueless, I didn't take a close look at the bird and just wrote it off as some sort of aberrant, or maybe a farmyard goose.
Then I learned a valuable lesson! A couple of days later, I came across pictures of Snow Geese, which I had never seen or heard of before, and was startled by the similarity between the images of dark morph Snow Geese and the bird I'd seen at Pennington.
Could any wiser heads tell me a bit more about Snow Geese? How big are they? Are they likely to be seen in company with Canadas? Is there a feral population of these birds in the UK?
