Todd's Canada goose, Linwood Moss, Clyde

I was scanning through a flock of pink-footed geese and whooper swans on Linwood Moss near Paisley today, and came across this dark breasted Canada goose. It seems pretty good for Todd's Canada goose Branta canadensis interior, e.g. large size, dark breast, thin neck, long bill and is it my imagination or is that cheek patch a little less white than on the nearby feral birds? What more do you want? In some ways it would have been nice if the feral Canada's hadn't been there, but it's not unusual for vagrant Canada's to mix with feral birds and at least they are a good comparison species, especially for breast colour and size. 

You can clearly see on more than one photo that the Todd's is a bit smaller than the feral birds with definitely a narrower neck and  a longer body. None of these features individually are conclusive of Todd's, but combined I think they make a pretty strong case. Perhaps the upperparts could be a bit darker, but these are phone scoped images on a dull day at distance so it's not easy to be sure. Notice also the fringes of the upperpart feathers which are clearly narrower and darker than on the adjacent feral bird.

Actually in this photo the Todd's (on the right) does look quite a bit darker than the feral bird and the feather fringes are clearly darker and look almost buffish which is right for Todd's (compare with the white feather fringes of the pink-foot immediately behind). 

There's perhaps a bit more fringing than I would have expected, but I've no idea about the age of this bird and whether or not that would affect the extent of the fringing. Certainly in some species of geese 1st winter birds do have more extensive fringing (e.g. brent geese). There are plenty of other photos on the internet which show other apparent Todd's Canada goose with a similar amount of fringing.

The size of the Todd's (the right hand bird) is a bit hard to judge from these photos, sometimes it looks almost the same size of the feral birds, yet in others it looks a lot smaller. This photo I would say portrays most accurately the true size of the bird. It's quite a bit bigger than the pink-footed geese but obviously smaller than the feral Canadas, which is spot on for Todd's. This photo also shows well how narrow and snake like the neck is, especially when compared with the left hand Canada goose.

The flock also contained a single barnacle goose which is in the background of some of these photos.

This photo makes it look barely larger than a pink-foot!

Again you can clearly see that it is a smaller bird than the feral birds with a much darker breast and the feather fringes whilst admittedly partially hidden do not stand out at all.

I don't think that the identification of this bird is in any doubt, I've seen plenty of photos of other apparent Todd's which look a lot less convincing than this. Some Todd's like birds do exist in the feral population but B.c.interior is also one of the most likely candidates for true vagrancy.

Photo: Whooper swans and pink-footed geese.