Greater Snow Goose at Point Edward?

[Karl Overman]

Robert Epstein and I birded Point Edward, Ontario today, October  
1st.  Michigan birders have borrowed Point Edward for years to try  
for notable birds flying in off Lake Huron into Michigan.  Today at  
9:45 am we saw a flock of six Snow Geese--all white phased birds--  
fly in off Lake Huron, cross over Ontario waters and then cross over  
the St. Clair River into Michigan.  One of the birds was strikingly  
larger than the others.  My initial thoughts were that it was either  
one Snow Goose and five Ross's Geese (unlikely) or one Greater Snow  
Goose and five Lesser Snow Geese (also unlikely).  On closer  
inspection,  none of the birds looked like Ross's Geese so I would  
vote for Greater Snow Goose (Anser caerulescens atlanticus).  Jim  
Granlund's account in Birds of Michigan p.26 (1997) notes that there  
are no satisfactory records of Greater Snow Goose for Michigan and  
that is probably still the case.  Our sighting would not change that  
even though we did photograph the flock under less than ideal  
conditions and I suspect there would have to be ideal conditions  for  
photographic proof of that subspecies being this far west.   
Nonetheless, it was an interesting sighting.  Incidentally, this is  
also very early to see Snow Geese in SE Michigan though not record  
early.  An example of an early fall arrival date would be September  
26, 1987 (2)  Lake Erie Metro Park, Wayne Co. Tex Wells.

In the  two and a half hours we were at Point Edward we saw no  
jaegers.  Ducks were moving though almost all were far out in the  
lake.  I did see a flock of six dark winged scoters (sp.).  Other  
ducks identified included a flock of 22 Redheads and a group of 3  
Pintails.  Only one group of Bonaparte's Gulls flew by--six birds.

Cheers,

Karl Overman
Farmington Hills, Mi.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.envirolink.org/pipermail/mich-listers/attachments/20081001/ea00b21b/attachment.html