Ross's Portraits

Yesterday, I found a cooperative Ross's Goose at Golden Ponds in Longmont, Colorado. A birding pal had told me about the bird a week earlier but I hadn't been able to find it then. Checking yesterday, I noticed a very small white bird in with large Canada Geese on a little residual ice shelf- cha-ching! This is about the only case where I like these big park geese- since they are so tame, they keep interesting birds like this Ross's Goose calm. They weren't even very nice to the Ross's- when it got too close to a massive Canada, the big goose would shoo it away, biting at its tail. Whatever the case, I slowly worked down to get some shots from the bank, waiting for chances to tunnel through the big geese to get some shots of the Ross's by itself. After a while it retired to the water but stayed nearby, paddling along in the mini iceberg-laden water, accompanied by its reflection. I think this bird makes a great comparison to the Snow Geese and odd Ross's Goose hybrids I recently posted- check them out if you haven't done so yet.