Pink-footed Goose - New York

On 15 November Deborah Powell reported an ABA Code-4 Pink-footed Goose (Anser brachyrhynchus) from a grassy strip by the Provident Bank in Orange, New York, and most recently from a commercial plaza off Dunning Road NW and its intersection with Schutt Road in Mechanicsville, New York.

Most ABA-area records of Pink-footed Goose have occurred in the past 25 years, occurring in both spring and fall.  As mentioned before in PEEPS, the breeding population in Greenland and Iceland was estimated at 10,000 pairs in 1989, and had increased to approximately 270,000 by 2005 as reported in Wetlands International’s Waterfowl Population Estimates, 4^th edition.

Pink-footed Goose has a small range.  Besides breeding in Iceland and southeastern Greenland, there is a population on Svalbard (Spitzbergen).  Birds breeding in Greenland and Iceland winter mostly in Scotland and in northern and eastern England (Handbook of the Birds of the World, Volume 1).