Tag: Greylag Goose

Now That’s Some Junk in the Goose Trunk

I am beginning to wonder if CJ (link here) is right on a previous post comment wondering if the epoxy fumes in the Nightmare Lab are starting to affect me. The last post I threw out the standard “holistic” approach to birding posts and simply zeroed in on one feature – the Night-Heron’s chicken foot galoshes. Now today, I am featuring this!

Domestic Goose found at Virginia Lake Park Reno, NV in May 2019

Granted this particular specimen looks kinda cute and for the record that is why I bothered to even take a picture of it. The issue is, I rarely bother to feature domesticated and likely hybrid birds here at Intrigued. Sure, like this one I’ll spend some digital capital and tin a few shots for my personal collection. Those images will never go to print and up until today would not be placed on the post queue – I know some of you just chuckled “he has a three year plus backlog of images and that’s with taking shots off the table – good lord, get that man an intern!?!”. Not to go too far off track, but one of my favorite authors is AJ Jacobs. One of his works, My Life as an Experiment: One Man’s Humble Quest to Improve Himself, covers his attempt to outsource his daily life to India. Every time I bring this “opportunity” up to Linda she smirks and sarcastically declares “I’m already your personal secretary you dufus”..sooo is that a yes?

Domestic Goose found at Virginia Lake Park Reno, NV in May 2019

Hit the jump to read a bit more about this rarity here at Intrigued.

Continue reading Now That’s Some Junk in the Goose Trunk

Duck Duck Goose

My nervous tick is indicating it is about time to put out another bird post!  Unfortunately, the one I have teed up for today is one I’ve kind of been dreading.  Not that it a terrifying bird or anything (in fact it is quite visually appealing), but rather the offshoots of the Goose are difficult to ID with any certainty.  Once there’s crossbreeding with the Canada Goose and domestic geese you never know what you are going to get – from there, the mutations just get beyond levels of truly classifying.  This is possibly the case here, but based on some serious research, there might be a check here after all.

For reference, focus on the LARGER birds in the images – there was a smattering of Mallards hanging around that looked quite content in the midst of the larger flock.  These shots were actually taken by the side of the road on our way back from Wildcat Den State Park near Muscatine, Iowa.  Linda had always been wanting to take me there so took her up on it one weekend we were free (geesh, probably a year or two ago).  If you have never been there it is similar to Starved Rock in the features, but actually better – for one thing they have way less graffiti all over the place which always make me sick every time I journey up to Starved Rock.  That is one of the few uses of drones or cameras that I condone if that will curtail that crap.  So, on our way back, I noticed a nice collection of Geese and Ducks hanging out enjoying the nice weather.

Hit the jump to read a lot more about these birds and a few others I shot at the same time

Continue reading Duck Duck Goose