Throwback Thursday #3: Barnacle in Canada (Geese)

On December 23rd, 2012, I went to Van Cortland Park with my dad to chase a Barnacle Goose there. This rare vagrant lives in Greenland and Scotland, but occasionally a bird may stray into the Northeast. This bird was reported consistently over the past month. When we got there we saw thousands of geese on the ball fields. Much closer to us, there was a flock of about 50 geese and 2 birders. At first it was hard to pick out the Barnacle Goose from the Canadas because they never kept their heads up. I then tried to look at the bodies to see if I could find one that looked different. This made it very easy to find the goose. It was much smaller than the other geese, so much that some people had mistaken a rare Cackling Goose there for the Barnacle. I also noticed it being chased around by the larger subspecies (they vary a lot in size) of Canada Goose. This chase was a success.