Jofa wrote: ↑Feb 01 8:40 am
Wow, I wasn't prepared for such a fast reply. Thanks! I'm just getting into birding with a couple of of friends in town. What a perfect, safe hobby to pursue during a pandemic!
Do you ever see the blue morphs around here? Are there more or less of them than white morphs in the world?
Do they typically travel with gaggles of Canada Geese? Can I use Canada Geese as a proper noun or does it always have to be the singular Canada Goose? This one seemed to stay slightly farther away from the other geese.
I'm reading and learning, it's just great to hear from experienced birders too. I'm liking this already.
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Snow_Goose/id
That is great that you are getting into birding! Yes, it a perfect pandemic friendly pastime where you have to be outdoors. Birding is better if you can get away from people.
Blue morphs -- yes, I believe they occur. It is like blue eyes vs brown eyes as a certain population of snow goose will be blue morph. I don't know the actually percentage but I believe blue morph is more rare.
Gaggles of geese -- yup, you can find them mixed with other species, pretty much all geese and ducks do this. However groups in an area do tend to stick together. This lone snow goose my have lost his group temporarily and is hanging out with Canada Geese for the time being. The spacing may be perceived, I don't think the snow goose is deliberately distancing from Canada geese.
Canada Goose/Geese -- It all works. I call them
branta canadensis as it makes them sound a bit more special
or "soccer field fertilizer geese"️
or "giant fir tree sparrow" when seen perched in a really weird spot.
Cheers,