Again with some free time today, my mom and I headed up to Somers to look for the Pink-footed Goose (Anser brachyrhynchus) found yesterday morning by Mike O’Leary. Pink-footed Goose is a bird I’ve wanted to see for a long time and is an exciting one to see in my home state. Yet, there was hardly any search element to seeing the bird.
Basically we pulled into the Somersville Pond lot around 11. I was surprised to not find any birders there but even more surprised to find the Pink-footed Goose after just two minutes of scanning through the flock. Around a half an hour later the geese were spooked but the first field we checked held what looked like the entire flock (including the Pink-footed Goose). We spent the next couple of hours enjoying this bird, which, much to our delight came pretty close and gave great looks just before we left. Definitely one of the most painless rare goose chases I’ve ever had!
Greg Hanisek provides fantastic detail in his blog post on the origins of this flock and other rare geese in Connecticut. Definitely worth checking out.
Photos and (phonescoped) video below:
What a bird!
-Alex
What can I say, Alex? Another awesome, memorable afternoon. Great to be there with you and Gaby…and Dakota!!!!