Please identify 1 tree and 2 geese for me

[Owledge]

I couldn't identify the tree because websites don't give me an extensive picture gallery. It's quite common in Europe, but I forgot the name.

 

The two geese, especially the dark one, weren't in the photo galleries I checked. Might there be cross-breeding involved? The dark one has an 'extendable feather fan' on the head and makes very low-frequency and low-volume noises. Shorter and deeper than Darth Vader's breathing.

(There's a funny anecdote about how the two geese on the photo apparently became friends.)

 

 

 

Edited August 15, 2012 by Owledge

[Marblehead]

The tree is a Weeping Willow. I'm not into geese. Hehehe. I would use the black one, likely the male for ID purposes.

[Apech]

Yes definitely a Weeping Willow ... is the bird on the left a Greylag? No idea about the other one.

[Owledge]

Doesn't seem to be a greylag. We have them here, too, and they look different.

 

Regarding the right one, I'm beginning to wonder whether a goose and a turkey can have offspring.

Edited August 15, 2012 by Owledge

[Age Sage]

I keep ducks and geese as pets, so this thread is a fun one!

The black bird on the right is a Muscovy duck (Cairina moschata), a species of tree duck native to Brazil/South America but widely domesticated in the USA and around the world. The buff bird on the left was more of a challenge! It does look like a goose, but I don't recognize it. It's not a domestic breed or from either of the two species from which domestic geese are descended.

 

The tree is as others already stated -- a weeping willow (Salix babylonica).

[Owledge]

Cool, thanks!

 

Maybe the lightly colored bird really is a cross breed. I mean, many geese seem nearly indistinguishable if you ignore the coloring.

Can geese and ducks cross breed? They're both "anatidae" so I guess so. Would broaden the possibilities for mixing even more.

I was surprised that the dark one is a duck. The whole shape says goose, and the websites I browsed shows no ducks bigger than the usual duck size.

The Muscovy duck has some funny behaviors. Apart from those deep short noises, I once tried to touch it and it began to shake its whole neck and did a deep voiced stutter. And then that feather fan on the head (Does it signal excitement/anxiety?)... I'd not be surprised if kids called this bird "duck from outer space".

 

Can you tell me what it means when the lighter duck spreads its wings and shouts at the other one? I've seen this the first time when the two supposedly met, but since then I've always seen them hanging out togther and recently I saw the shouting again.

Just some minor relationship trouble?

Edited August 22, 2012 by Owledge

[Age Sage]

The muscovy duck is not as familiar to some people as the mallard duck is. Mallards are the root and source for all of the domestic breeds of duck EXCEPT for the muscovy. Mallards (Anas platyrhyncos) belong to the grouping of ducks called "dabbling ducks," so called for their habit of dabbling -- getting their food by "rooting" in the mud and dunking their heads and upper bodies underwater briefly to grab water plants, fish, etc.

Muscovies belong to another group called "tree ducks," so called because they actually roost and perch in trees, while dabbling ducks are strictly inhabitants of the ground and water.

They have different behaviors and make different sounds.

 

The lighter bird is a gans - a goose - of some kind, and I agree with you that it might well be a hybrid of a couple different goose species. And perhaps a juvenile as well, not yet in its mature form. It doesn't look like any domestic breed at all. The wing-spreading behavior you saw is very typical of geese; it's a dominance display behavior that ganders (male geese) do to establish their rank in the dominance hierarchy. He's trying to be the boss! The muscovy has no clue what the gander is talking about, since they "speak different languages,"

 

I'm not an expert on muscovies -- I raise dabbling ducks and domestic geese -- but I do believe that the raised crest on the head may indeed be an excitement response, or perhaps a defensive one (raising or puffing out the feathers to look bigger and more threatening, is a form of defense).

 

Geese can interbreed with other species of geese and brants, even those of different genera (for example, Anser anser -- the Greylag goose and its domestic descendents -- can breed with the Canada goose, Branta canadensis, They produce sterile offspring, like a mule), but they cannot interbreed with ducks. There is a point, genetically, at which the two groups are just too different to be viable.

 

Even though they aren't interfertile, ducks and geese can make perfectly good companions for each other. I have four ducks and an African gander. The gander lost his goose mate several years ago, and since then has been content hanging out with the ducks. They have similar enough habits that they are compatible.

Edited August 22, 2012 by Age Sage

[Owledge]

Wow, that's a lot of useful information, since I'm trying to understand those birds in the park.

If the dominance thing is only done by males, that would be interesting, because the muscovy duck has that 'wart' thing on the beak which means it's a male. Either they are both male or the female tried to establish dominance.

Either way, it looked to me as if the muscovy originally impressed the other one with his total coolness and disregard for that dominance behavior. He kept following beside me, and I'm not sure he wanted food. I guess he would have smelled it if I had had any on me. Recently he did mostly the same thing, circling me while I was crouching. Very mysterious. He also has that super-confident look that I didn't see in youtube videos of other muscovy ducks.

Funny bird.

[Age Sage]

The park can be a great source of enlightment, huh?

Among geese, in a flock there will usually be a dominant male-female pair (the "alpha" geese), and then a "pecking order" that goes down the line in rank and status. It rarely involves any kind of violence. Both ganders and geese (the name "goose" is also the term for a female of the species; "gander" is the male) will lower their heads and stretch out their necks, and charge at the individual they wish to show dominance over. If the other individual acts submissively, that's that and the rank is established, and everyone goes about his/her business. Sometimes (though I've never seen it) geese will tussle over dominance; they will pinch a beakful of the other bird's feathers and tug at each other till one backs down. The wing-spreading is a dominance display that ganders do, but I've never seen a goose do that, only the neck-stretching approach (by the way, mallard ducks and their domestic descendents do a somewhat similar head-down/neck-stretch dominance thing).

 

I think the goose in your park is a male, based on the wing-spreading behavior. And, I suspect he is young. Wish we could discover what species he is! The muscovy duck is not impressed by the (alleged) gander's attempt to display dominance, because muscovies aren't wired for that behavior and thus not wired to interpret it. I think your muscovy is either a very young adult male or else a duck (as with geese, "duck" is also the term for the female of the species; "drake" is the male) -- females also have the red "warts," it's just that those growths are a lot smaller and less pronounced than on a drake. If your little friend is a female, that might explain why she is followin you. She sees you as a better drake than the gander who keeps speaking to her in a foreign language she doesn't understand, with that weird wing-spread!

[Cat Pillar]

I don't know much at all about birds, so this thread was not only entertaining but very informative!

[Marblehead]

I don't know much at all about birds, so this thread was not only entertaining but very informative!

George Jones did a song a long time ago and a few of the words go:

 

"The last thing I gave her was the bird."

[Owledge]

Flipping the bird is not nice. The bird usually can't get on its feet again.

[Age Sage]

@ Marblehead --

Are you from Marblehead, Mass. or Marblehead, Ohio? Just wonderin'!

[Cat Pillar]

This thread inspired a fun dream last night. I was hanging out with someone in a park with a bunch of big white birds. The birds were flying around a lot, and I held out one of my arms to see if they'd land on it. One of them grabbed my arm but kept on trying to fly. Then I got the great idea of holding both arms out...a bird attached to each arm and they carried me up into the tree tops.

 

It was fun.

[Age Sage]

Great dream! Cool variation on the "flying" theme.

[GrandmasterP]

Ghandi's nickname at school was...

 

'Goosey-Goosey'

[Stosh]

Just for additional confirmation , ditto on the willow and the muscovy .

The goose on the left looks like a cross to me too

I need to check out my books before I take a guess on it

But if you go to FLIKr there is a forum specifically aimed at ID ing waterfowl-domestic crosses

and there are some really remarkable folks who really know their shtick.

(as does Age Sage -obviously )

 

Stosh