Wild Goose Chase

Thursday morning. 

18 October, 2012.

 Six o’clock in the am. It is cold and it is dark and I am in bed. But not for long! Forty minutes and a cup of coffee later I am crawling into the vehicle of Gary Davidson for a highish speed drive to Burton, some thirty minutes south of Nakusp for a pre-dawn pre-school wild Goose chase.

No, really.

Gary had been away from Nakusp on a Vancouver to Florida cruise via the Panama Canal and, if that wasn’t enough he had the extra rudeness to spot some rare birds adjacent to the Highway at the Burton Flats on the return trip home. The birds in question were Cackling Geese. These birds were only recognized a few years ago to be separate species from Canada Goose and are, in the Arrow Lakes Valley at least, quite rare. And for me they represented not only an interesting species but a lifer.

So after Gary had dutifully informed me of their presence the chase was on. Teaching responsibilities prevented me from racing straight down as Nakusp Secondary had inconveniently planned an Open Night so hence the early Thursday morning start.

Now to make a short story even shorter; we arrived to see a small group of Geese near where Gary had left them. Excitedly but cautiously we drove in their direction. Sadly the birds took off and flew south [to coin a phrase] along the lake. They weren’t seen again. Other Geese sighted turned out to be clearly Canadian –their large size and, in particular, their long bills giving them away.

So I dipped. Again. How I had hoped for a happy ending.....

PS – The following day, Friday, all was forgotten. For a Professional Development I had arranged a meeting of sorts with an ex-English Teacher Chris Siddle in Vernon. Enroute I scored the Cacklers – five at least of them on the Fauquier Golf Course in the company of many more Canada Geese. They were very clearly smaller with darker backs and shorter pushed in bills. To my eye they may have had proportionally smaller areas of white under the tail and onto the belly. At any rate they quite stood out. So another North American species falls to my list……………A very Happy beginning for a weekend away!

Cackling Geese in the foreground and Canada Geese in the background

The picture above, kindly supplied by Gary Davidson, demonstrates the difference between the two species. Check out the near identical plumage but also note the clear difference in size and bill length.