I lived in Monterey CA in 2008. Visiting in May 2010, I ran across a motley Goose family at the Naval Postgraduate School. What a delight. A white domestic goose had crossed with a Canadian Goose and they had five little goslings, that had really mixed up genes. That was also another older male Canadian Goose hanging with them.
May 2010
This visit, I decided to try and find them. I looked all over town. At one point I saw a flock flying and spotted one light colored goose and thought that might be them. But I returned again to the Naval Postgraduate School my last day in Monterey, and found the very same geese. In the above photo, you see one dark gosling. The group I found had the two older Canadian Geese, plus one more that looked like them. And then the white goose, and three other light colored geese with faint markings like a Canadian Goose and the fifth goose kind of looked like a Canadian goose, except his head.
October 2013.
The family of eight is still in tact and are either sterile or nor reproducing. That swim together though there is a larger flock of Canadian Geese nearby. There where in the water very near where I first saw them three and 1/2 years ago. The males looks smaller than the neighboring Canadian Geese. I think they are beautiful.
A lady who works there told me any time she is near them, they attack her, but small children and other people can walk by them and they don’t do anything. I’m writing this off line as I am out of internet range… but want to search online to learn more about how old geese are before they mate, and if the hybrids are sterile???
OK, yes, it fascinates me. Forgive me if I am boring you.
