Quote:
Originally Posted by Rich Anderson
Is the smaller bird a lesser Canada? When I hunted them in Canada there were greater and lesser geese mixed together. I always wanted a lesser to have mounted but it never came to pass and I gave up hunting waterfowl.
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OK, the birds in the picture were last year's birds and the large one is a Giant but not as big as the one in my earlier photo. The birds with the mallard are as follows: Giant Canada (biggest), a Western Canada (medium), and a Richardson's Canada (smallest and indeed one that would be a lesser). Richardson's are one of the Cackling or Lesser Canada geese and they are all small. The other variety we get here is the Great Basin Canada Goose about in between the western and giant. Typical weights are Giant 14-15 pounds, Great Basin (Moffit's) 10-12 pounds, Western 7-10 pounds, and Richardson's 3-4 pounds. Somewhere I have a photo of all four varieties together I took years ago up by Fort Collins, but it isn't digital. At that time I hunted with the former head of the Colorado Division of Wildlife waterfowl program and he knew what was what on the geese. There are many subspecies.