Hi Steve,
I’ve been on the road for the last month and haven’t seen any response
to this so I’ll give you my two cents’ worth. Yes, parvipes/Lesser
occurs here in Idaho. I’ve seen birds like you describe and to me they
fit very well into parvipes based on the longer bill length to head
ratio. Of course there will always be intermediate birds you can’t
comfortably identify.
Here are a few links to references for separating Cackling/Canada Goose
to subspecies:
Bill size, not shape, distinguishes Cackling and Canada Goose
http://www.utahbirds.org/RecCom/IDhelp/Cackling_Goose-NAB.pdf
I found the bill size post on Sibley’s site really interesting.
Apparently the deeper based appearance of the bill on Cackling Goose is
an optical illusion. Actually the bill shape is almost almost identical
to Canada. Definitely worth a look.
Cliff
On 01/21/2018 09:56 PM, Steve Kahl Steve_Kahl@fws.gov [ible] wrote:
>
> About 4 weeks ago I started noticing a few Canada geese w/ noticeably
> smaller bills and shorter/thicker necks among the typical
> moffitti/maxima. They are also noticeably smaller than the
> moffitti/maxima but not nearly small enough to be cackling geese.
> These smaller birds are similarly light chested to the moffitti/maxima.
>
>
> The first week or two I just attributed it to individual variation of
> a couple individuals. But, this weekend out of over 600 Canadas I
> counted in three locations, at least 15 stuck out as these small
> birds. This included birds within flocks of moffitti/maxima flying
> over, standing along the shoreline preening/loafing, and grazing in a
> pasture.
>
> Can anyone advise on which subspecies this more likely could be? My
> best guess would be lesser/parvipes. But, I’m well aware of how tricky
> ID’ing Canada geese to subspecies away from their breeding grounds can be.
>
> Thank you!
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
—
Cliff and Lisa Weisse
Island Park, Idaho
cliffandlisa@octobersetters.com