January 20 2019. LaSalle Park, Burlington, ON. A decent snowfall yesterday really changed things. Days of dire warnings kept most people at home but we emerged today to a new world, six inches or so of clean light snow under a bright blue sky and temperatures down at -15° C (5° F). It was tempting to stay indoors but there was snow shovelling to do and I wondered how our resident birds were coping.
I walked along a shoreline trail of a small lakeside park, it’s a pleasant and well-used path enjoyed by many dog walkers and casual bird-photographers.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, you never know what a radical change in weather conditions might produce. Two surprises in the end: first a Brown Creeper making its close way up and around trunks of several trees. The snow made no apparent difference to its day, there must be little invertebrates and eggs to be found in the cracks and crevices at any time of year. But Brown Creepers exploring tree-trunks in an upward spiral and are inclined to switch trees without warning, they’re always a photography challenge. Here it is.
The second surprise was to find what I am pretty sure are Cackling Geese mingling with a large aggregation of Canada Geese, Trumpeter Swans and Mallards. A Cackling Goose looks for all the world like a Canada Goose, indeed until recently it was considered a Canada Goose subspecies. It is a, perhaps needlessly, complicated story, but essentially, the Canada Goose varies considerably in size and plumage tone across its North American range and science once recognized fifteen subspecies. But there were enough differences identified within the smaller statured birds that the Cackling Goose was split out and accorded its own species status. Now, as if life wasn’t complicated enough, ornithologists recognize eleven subspecies of Canada Goose and four subspecies of the breakaway Cackling Goose. As the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Birds of North America website puts it so succinctly, “Complex morphological and genetic variation.” Okay, enough. The Cackling Goose is for all the world just like a small, rather cute Canada Goose, with a relatively shorter and thicker neck and a rather petite bill. I believe this is one.
It’s possible this is the first time I have knowingly seen or studied a Cackling Goose, and it’s also quite possible I’ve got it wrong, but I’ll go with it as Bird of the Day today.
