White-cheeked Branta

In spite of the dramatic thunderstorms that hit Saturday morning, with lightning enough to chase us inside, the weather stayed warm while we were in eastern Nebraska. Eastern Bluebirds and Eastern Phoebes sang from the loess bluffs and fields, and Eastern Meadowlarks, typically an early April arrival, were firmly on territory at Walnut Creek (with one as far west as Alda later on in the trip).

The flip side of all this passerine excitement, of course, was a relative lack of waterfowl. We did eventually record 19 species, including Red-breasted and Hooded Mergansers, but most of those we did find were encountered in only low numbers: a single Canvasback, fewer than 50 Greater White-fronted Geese, and not even 1,000 Snow Geese. On trips we’ve made when March has been colder, waterfowl have been a highlight, with many species recorded in the thousands, even the hundreds of thousands in the case of Snow Goose.

But this year, it just meant that we took the time to enjoy the web-foots we did run into. Especially instructive, I think, were the 4 Ross’s Geese we found at North Platte, which permitted stunningly close approach and great comparisons with the Snows accompanying them. We could even see the dirty gray patch at the base of the bill.

And then there are the “Canackling” Geese. Most of the Canada Geese we saw in eastern Nebraska were large birds with long, sloping foreheads and swan-like bills, and could safely be assumed to be maxima or moffitti or intergrades, a large proportion of them probably the fruits of the successful re-introductions carried out in the last century.

Others, though, particularly in the central Platte Valley, were smaller, with shorter necks and bills and noticeably angular heads. Traditionally, these birds have been assumed to be interior, but it is possible, too, that they are parvipes Canada Geese.

When we started running across these small Canadas, we were doubly happy to have had such good studies of a Cackling Goose near Gretna early in the trip. This bird, with a badly injured wing, has been present at the site for at least two years now, and its sedentary lifestyle has made it fairly trusting.

This individual is clearly smaller than the domestic Mallards it is forced to consort with, and the short neck, tiny bill, and rounded head with a clear ’stop’ make it easy to identify as a hutchinsii Cackling Goose.

How much simpler things were before the split! But it has been fascinating watching the evolution of the criteria for distinguishing among the various white-cheeked Branta over the last three years, and this Nebraska trip was a great opportunity to test some of them out.