Dodgy Goose RSPB Buckenham today (1 Viewer)

[Perry Grin]

Dodgy pic too - hand held, phone pic in wind - sorry.

This was with some barnacle geese at Buckenham today, structure the same as for the barnacle geese, with small all-black bill. Aberrant barnacle goose, or some kind of hybrid?

TIA

Perry

 

[ChrisBish]

Looks like one of the Ross's hybrids that are often lurking around Norfolk somewhere...

 

[Stephen Dunstan]

Appreciating that the picture has limitations hybrids that look a bit like this are sometimes suggested to be Pinkfoot x Barnacle.

Stephen

 

[Tideliner]

You are right Chris. There were 2 of them with some barnacles on the North coast last winter.They originate from the East lighthouse , on the Wash as do most of the the barnacles they hang about with.

 

[Perry Grin]

Cheers guys. Just googled barnacle x ross's hybrids and came up with some very similar looking birds.

Perry

 

[Dave Appleton]

It's been there for several years now. Either a Snow Goose x Barnacle Goose hybrid or a Ross's Goose x Barnacle Goose hybrid. The latter seem to be much more frequent but this individual is larger than most which led to me identifying it as Snow x Barnacle originally. Structurally though it lacks features that might be expected on a Snow hybrid so it may just be a large Ross's x Barnacle. See http://www.gobirding.eu/Photos/RosssSnowGoosexBarnacleGoose.php