I appreciate the recent discussion regarding the question of small goose identification in Ohio. I share Bill's reservations in general and have expressed my concern in the pages of North American Birds with regard to the question of Cacklers. I believe I have been equally skeptical of reports of Ross's Goose over the years with respect to publication within the ornithological record. Bill has expressed concern over the identification of the putative Ross's Goose in Ashtabula. He correctly notes Ohio has a history of hybrid white geese. However, I must disagree with the notion that the Ashtabula bird in any way exhibits hybrid characters. If I read Bill's note correctly, it almost entirely boils down to the presence of 'dark lips" which I take to be the presence of a grin patch, ostensibly a feature of a Snow Goose, while also sporting the blue-gray patch of color at the base of the bill, a feature of Ross's Goose. This debate seems to come up every time someone gets a photo close enough to see these features clearly. Any further away and that grin patch would be subsumed in the overall look. Similarly, so too are we presented with a bill structure that some have wondered is not all that stubby as we are told in field guides to expect. Again, step away from such proximity and I submit the stubbier one perceives this to be. What if I were to tell you that the bill is perfectly normal in every respect of shape, size, and color for Ross's Goose. What if I were to tell you that the norm for a Ross's Goose is to exhibit a grin patch? And what of the vertical feather edging where the bill meets the face as opposed to a sharply concave appearance in a Snow Goose? I imagine you would want to investigate those claims. I would then ask that you examine any and all of the following photographic guides by Stokes (2010), Floyd (2008), Brinkley (2007), or Kaufman (2000). Even though the images are not especially close-up, one can make out all of the features above, including the grin patch to the extent exhibited by the bird in Ashtabula. Better yet, take a look at the side-by-side close-up of the two species given in Crossley (2011). In a sampling of 40 images from the photo site Flickr, I could only find 4 matching the lack of a grin patch depicted in Sibley for a Ross's Goose. Furthermore, Sibley's example of a hybrid illustrates a blending of characters as alluded to by Bill, not a mixed set. If I am to follow Sibley, I would expect to see a blending of the bill color not the robust presentation of a Ross's Goose that we see in the Ashtabula. Please examine your own google searches for more examples. Here is a gallery of 18 images (limit set by Flickr) of close-ups of Ross's Goose. http://www.flickr.com/photos/victor_fazio-iii/galleries/72157628294948177/ And my own close-up of one individual from sw. OK ... http://www.flickr.com/photos/victor_fazio-iii/sets/72157628295254011/with/3233648282/ [I see roughly 100 Ross's vs 10,000 Snows per annum in OK] As to size ... this is another problematic presentation in the literature. Yes, the most recent (6th ed.) of the National Geographic guide, as one example, gives the length of both Ross's Goose and Mallard as 23 inches which to many might sound as though they are the same size. Given that every Ross's Goose I have seen paddle in front of a Mallard puts it in its shadow, this warrants a closer look. Sourcing Cornell University's "All About Birds" which in turn sources the NAB online accounts, I find some variation ... Mallard: 19.7 to 25.6 inches Ross's Goose: 22.4 to 25.2 inches ... not much of a difference, although stick a 25 inch Ross's next to a 20 inch Mallard and I'm guessing you'd notice. But as pointed out by Mike Busam, it's really about heft. In weight ... Mallard: 1000 to 1300 g Ross's Goose: 860 to 2040 g So there are those pairings where they are comparable, and there are those where a Ross's Goose may be as much as twice the size of a Mallard. I do not want to blow things out of proportion. I am trying to counter what I find to be some outdated misperceptions surrounding hybrid white geese. They do exist, and Ohio has some of the best documented examples. But I think we also need to take a moment to examine all of the record and understand what I argue is natural variation. If I am wrong, and the characters in the Ashtabula bird put forth as that of a hybrid holds true in the eyes of those more expert than I, then about 90% of all the putative Ross's Goose photos I have seen depict hybrids, including all those appearing within a decade's worth of photo guides. cheers Vic Fazio PI: Black-capped Vireo Monitoring Project, Fort Sill M.R., OK Oklahoma Bird Records Committee Regional Editor, OH-WV-PA, North American Birds State Reviewer, OK & OH, Project eBird ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]