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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

two rare-for-here geese, Trondheim, Norway (1 Viewer)

Doc Duck

Doc Duck

Well-known member
Took a drive upriver looking for tufted ducks today. No luck, but met another birder who told us to look for a large flock of trumpeter swans in a field on our way home. He was sure he'd seen one bean goose and one pink-footed goose amongst the swans. Well, we found the field. Snowy, of course. And the only spot we could get to meant photographing straight into the sun. But a couple of pics came out possibly identifiable. I've compared pics on-line and in guides and can't really tell if these are bean geese, pink-footed geese, or one of each. Can anyone on the ID forum help? Four images to work from, but all from some distance and into the sun. One of each goose and two of the two together.
 

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The left hand goose looks a bit grey for a bean , I would put it as a probable pink foot , but I cant be sure from this photo , though on my PC there is a hint of pink leg in the
3rd photo.
 
Hi, the left bird is a Pink-footed Goose. Note its jizz, dark contrasting head, grey hand/primary-covs, greyish tertials, pinkish feet and broad white tail-band. Looks like an adult bird because of straight bright fringes of scaps.

Cheers
 
ok. So I guess I have to go back tomorrow with better, i.e. higher, boots and try to get closer... If they're still there.
 
it would be good to have a photo of the putative pink-foot with it's head up I suppose, still going for Pink-foot on these photos though.
 
jacana said:
it would be good to have a photo of the putative pink-foot with it's head up I suppose, still going for Pink-foot on these photos though.
Click to expand...

I am quite sure that the left hand bird is a Pinkfoot, for all the reasons put forward by Fabalis. However, the 2 pictures of the bird alone also both seem to show a Pinkfoot. If there is to be any uncertainty about the id of these birds it should be about the Bean, although the right hand bird on the first pictures looks pretty convincing to me. Are you sure your pictures of the lone birds show both individuals?

Lutzen Portengen
 
No, I'm not sure the individual shots are one of each goose. They were wandring about, sometimes hidden behind the snowdrift I was trying to climb, so they may well have switched sides. I didn't get back to see them again, but have searched through all the dud shots I got to see if I had any more salvageable. Here are a few that might help with the id. Or might not. In one, one of them has a lifted foot. Looks pink to me. There's one of the two side by side, but facing me heads down feeding, so mostly you just see their necks and backs, but also a bit of their legs. The last two are cropped from a single shot, so definitely each shown separately, but the one on the right was only barely in the frame. Well, it's what I got under the circumstances (floundering in a snow drift, shooting into the sun). If they can't be identified, so be it.
 

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