Vermont Rare Bird Reports 2020

Cedar Stanistreet,

Windy, cloudy, some drizzle occasionally. A blah day.

30x Vortex Spotting Scope.

Seen a Ross's once before three years prior, but that was probably a misidentified Snow Goose. Since I've re-evaluated that, this was one of two Ross's Goose seen here, which would be lifers. Cedar had seen Ross's before; this was his first VT record. This was both of our first Ross's hybrid.

Mown grass fields.

Seen sitting amongst other Snow Geese, spotted after landing. Would have its head down, and then occasionally pop up, almost comically. Looked around with head, put it down again. Repeat. The words "cute" and "adorbs" come to mind.

None heard that were able to be distinguished from the euphany of Snow Geese.

Cedar and I watched this flock land. One Ross's Goose was identified while in flight, which landed in another part of the flock, but we lost sight of it, and did not find it again until later when Cedar got it in his scope. This second Ross's Goose (a hybrid) was noted while we were panning the flock. We noticed the small neck, round head, triangular stubby beak, and size difference from relative Snow Geese. I spotted it first, immediately identified it, and then called Cedar over to look in my scope, who confirmed my ID as a Ross's. We high-fived. We identified this only as a Ross's Goose, not as a hybrid.

Later, I uploaded photos of this bird to iNaturalist. David Hoag (I assume - "hobiecat" signed his post D.H. and was a prolific birder from Grand Isle on iNaturalist, and he also knows about hybrids (which I've noted about him from previously looking on eBird for hybrids)) commented on the post, saying that this bird showed evidence of hybridisation. That post is here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/65168288. He noted: "A Ross's, but probably some hybridism present.
Base of the bill is relatively curved, and does not appear to be too dark (in a 5X enlargement)." It's unclear to me and to Cedar what "too dark" means - but it is clear from the photos that there is an evident grin patch on the bird. Given that as many as 1.9% of white geese have hybridisation (in 1992, c.f. Birds of the World), this doesn't seem out of the question.

I agreed with Hoag, based on my knowledge of his birding ability and a glance at the grin patch, and changed it on the eBird list and on iNat. I wonder if the neck striations, possibly evident in photos (but possibly just noise) may also show that this ROGO is not as white as expected.

Smaller, goose-like bird.

Round. White. Possible streaking in neck. Cheeky bird - looks kind of like a chipmunk. Black eye.

Triangular beak with evident grin patch. Pink bill (judged by Cedar), with no evident change in colour at the base - same as the other SNGOs as far as colouration goes.

Not seen.

Not seen.

Not seen.

Not seen.

Not seen.

Ross's was eliminated by noting curved base of bill. I looked at drawings in Pyle of differences, and also looked at Palmer's "Handbook of North American Birds: Waterfowl". Snow Goose by size and shape of bill, mainly.

Cedar and I would not have identified this as a hybrid without DH's help, and are generally referring to his judgement. The photographs are essential to identification.