Goosey Goosey Gander

DizzyBlue

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So met up with Bob yesterday for a spot of birdie watching didn't take many photos as the light was really iffy this is one picture I have kept even though its not very good as I just really love to see these things. This is a hybrid wild goose by the looks of it, (goose head down at front of photo is a pure Canada goose behind is the hybrid) Hybrid looks to be from the mating of a Canada Goose with a Greylag Goose. Its hanging out with the Canada Geese at Wheldrake Nature Reserve in North Yorkshire so identifies itself as being Canada Goose rather than Greylag or that is its mate that its with as n other geese with them ie not a flock gathering.
Seems to have the body shape of a Canada but colours seem to be a mixture of the two species there there should be white for Canada on the chest its not its beige, the lower chin area and up the side of the face should be pure white (sort of an upside down saddle marking) and its not its rather beautiful with the greylag colours in strange dual sided cheek patches and heading up to a lovely white eye flash and a flash of white circling the beak itself, the beak should be black for Canada but its a rather lovely muted greylag pinkish yellow colour :feel_loved: would loved to have seen what colour its legs where but it never came off the water whilst I was there.
Some say the hybrid goose theory is due to somewhere in the line there having been a parasitic nesting ie a greylag or a Canada laying an egg in the opposite species nest and the youngster produced growing up identifying itself as the wrong species and thereby only perusing a mating with the adoptive species rather than its actual species and that way pure bred geese choosing to only cross breed.. There are other theories about there being not enough available mates of the same species but we're talking Canada and Greylag geese which are both prolific rather than rare so I want to lean to the first theory rather than the latter,

goose2.jpg
 
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