Greg Massey found this Ross's Goose with one blue and one white Snow Goose during the Southport Christmas Bird Count on 1/5/02. Quite a combo! Normally the ratio of Ross's:Snow in North Carolina is 1:1000 or more. I believe this is the first count record for Ross's and second for Snow Goose. They were still there on 1/9/02 when I took these shots. The Ross's has a collar that says "0K" on one side.

Update: On 8/6/2003 Kathy Meeres, a Wildlife Technician with the Canadian Wildlife Service, contacted me about the collared Ross's. She said the bird was one they banded and, with a closer look look at other photos, we determined that the collar reads "P-0K". She writes:

Here is some information about your Ross's goose: She was banded as an adult female on August 7, 1999, near the Simpson River in the Queen Maud Gulf Sanctuary (67.2° N 100.1° W). There has been one other sighting of this bird - in Louisiana on Dec. 4, 2002. I checked my neckband observation records as well as legband returns (mostly hunter shot birds) for all records of banded Ross's geese in the Atlantic Flyway and found only 6 records, none of them from North Carolina. We have a web-site with a little information about the white goose neckbanding effort. Thanks for responding and confirming the code for this goose and let me know if you see any more of them!