[Birdnet] Cache Valley Geese: GREATER WHITE-FRONTED, CACKLING, SNOW AND ROSS' Pt. 1

[Craig Fosdick]

Today while birding in the Cache Valley, Ryan O' Donnell, Stephanie Cobbold,
and I found a GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE on 4600 N, between Sam Fellow Rd
(Sam-Feller Rd in Benchmark's Utah Atlas, p. 37; 3800 W at Mapquest)
and 3200 W.

DIRECTIONS: from US 91 (Main St) in Logan, turn left on 2500 N (Airport Rd)
and travel west.  At the five-way intersection of Airport Rd, 2400 W,and
3400 N (Darrell's Appliances is on the southwest corner), bear left, and
follow 3400 N west to the T-intersection with 3000 W. Turn right on 3000 W,
follow it across the Bear River, and then turn right onto 3200 W. Take 3200
W north to 4600 N. Turn left onto 4600 N ( a dirt road for at least some of
the way).  All the geese / almost all of the gulls were on the south side of
4600 N, feeding in the manure.  You can also view the spectacle from 3800 W
(Sam Fellow/ Sam Feller), but the traffic can be fast and sometimes busy,
and most of the geese were best viewed from 4600 N.

The GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE is on the south side of 4600 N, in a large
field that has freshly spread manure.  Be patient if you look for this bird,
because it is smaller than the Canadas, there are LOTS of Canadas, and some
undulating terrain, all of which can make locating the bird very
frustrating.  We found that when the GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE sat down,
it was easily blocked from view if even a single Canada Goose was in front
of it.  At times it was lost from view for 10-15 minutes at a time, even
though it had hardly moved a few feet.

This same field held, at various times during the 4 hrs that Keith Archibald
and I were glassing it (before Ryan and Stephanie arrived) at least 1,000
Canada Geese, at least 1,000 Ring-billed and California Gulls, 4 Tundra
Swans, 15-20 Snow Geese, 1 ROSS'S GOOSE, 2-3 CACKLING GEESE, and two hybrid
geese.  Other birds in the vicinity were a Prairie Falcon, 7+ Ravens, Horned
Larks, Northern Harrier, and Rough-legged Hawk.   Keith originally located
the Snow and Ross' Geese on Friday, in manure-covered fields south of 3200 N
in Benson.  Keith and I relocated the Snow Geese and the single Ross' Goose
today, then the fun began.  And Keith did get the Greater White-Fronted
Goose, though he did have to turn around and come back, because we found it
10 minutes after he left for the day.

Be sure to read Ryan O' Donnell's follow-up post "Cache Valley Geese:
GREATER WHITE-FRONTED, CACKLING, SNOW AND ROSS' Pt. 2" (or something like
that) which I think will have links to some pictures from today.  I'm pretty
sure Ryan will have something to say about the Cackling Geese.

Other birds seen in Cache Valley today were 8-10 American Tree Sparrows (at
least one of which was singing) and 40+ Common Mergansers, which are
starting to move as the rivers open up.

Cheers, Craig.
Logan, Utah.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://secureserver.securesites.net/pipermail/birdnet/attachments/20080308/1386855c/attachment.htm