5 Geese Species and a Swan in Phoenix

Hi everyone,

After seeing Melanie's report yesterday of the geese at Crystal Gardens Parkway in Avondale, I decided to head out that way this afternoon for awhile.  

I didn't have any problems finding the geese Melanie did yesterday in the same location as she previously reported, which is at the east side of the intersection of Crystal Gardens Parkway and Encanto.  One more GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE brought the count up to 5 birds from the four yesterday.  It has been over two years since I've seen a Greater White-Fronted Goose, so this was nice!  Thank you Melanie!  The SNOW GOOSE was also present along with the 5 smaller ROSS'S/SNOW GEESE.  To me, it looked like 3 of these birds were pure Ross's Geese and the other two appeared to be possible hybirds, having a more noticeable black of a "grin patch". 

There were plenty of CANADA GEESE to look through, and I found two CACKLING GEESE a pond north of where the other geese were.  These pond was on the east side of Crystal Garden Parkway was well.  Each pond is labeled here with a number, and the number for this pond was Treatment Cell 8A.  It was also east of a small street named Willshire that is along Crystal Garden Parkway.  These appeared to be "Richardon's" Cackling Geese, which may be the same pair that was seen here in the previous two winters.

THE FIVE GEESE:

Cackling Goose

Canada Goose

Greater White-Fronted Goose

Snow Goose (w/Ross's Goose)

Ross's Goose

Prior to the Goose chase, I went out to Sun City, where I was shown a TUNDRA SWAN on a private golf course pond.  This was only my second ever Tundra Swan.

Good Birding, Tommy DeBardeleben (Glendale, Arizona)