More goose pics---

Al Hansen

Al Hansen

Well-known member
Male blue goose and juvenile.

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Mom and a juvenile.

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The third juvenile.

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The "Fam"! Made me think of "What About Bob?" I watched this family quite a while. What is amazing is that they can stay together after the whole flock explodes in wild pandemonium----yet they do.

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Some of you guys have been talking on this site about the Ross' goose blue phase. Well, here is a juvenile that if he survives this year, should be looking might good by next fall. He was following his parents around the whole time.

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Had about a thousand geese come in from Chihuahua while I sat there. They were sky high when they came in from the south riding the southerly winds and I was treated to them "parachuting". None of the birds whiffled at all but they did set there wings and began gliding down. It was cool.
Al

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Thanks for sharing Al. First time I have seen a blue phase Ross. That is now on the list to get next year in Arkansas.
 
Nice AL,

Sure wish I could find them like that around here. Went out yesterday and found two with some Canadas out in a field feeding. Will keep scouting though!
 
The "blue" ross looks like a hybrid. There's too much curve to the bill line and the hint of a grin patch. Those with him cannot be the parents (unless there's a blue goose in the wood pile, which is probable) because the blue gene shows incomplete dominance in white geese. Two white birds are homozygous white, so neither could produce a blue.

Clint
 
Can you tell males & females apart in snow's & ross's?
I didnt think you cuold without a cloacal exam.
 
Hey Clint, thanks a lot. I appreciate what you had to say. I just got back an email from a waterfowl biologist friend and he,too, thought it was a hybrid.
Now in the big picture----were there always snows, Ross', and blue geese? If there was once only light geese, then where did the first blue come from?
Just curious as I don't know.
Al
 
Carl,

I look at head shape more than anything else, and would guess Al had the blue-snow pair mixed, I would have called the blue the gander. Remember, I have alot of captives and live with them 24/7/365 so I have alot of erxperience guessing and then confirming the sexes.

Al,

Blues actually used to be a very rare bird. The main nesting colony wasn't found until about 1953. As snow goose populations have increased (mainly because of changes in ag practices), blues have expanded into new colonies. The blue gene probably arose in the last glaciation period when there were fewer colonies and they were more separated. As with things like eastern and western willets, and king and clapper rails, a longer period of isolation may have resulted in more distict separation of species, but that hasn't happened.

I raise snows, blues, white-fronts, and cacklers and will tell ya that rape in a colony isn't unusual, which is probably how the blue genes have shown up in Ross. Until about 20 years ago, there were very few blues in any colony with ross geese. With the western expansion of the blue gene, and eastern expansion of ross geese into snow colonies, there was little opportunity of the introduction of the blue gene in ross.

Clint
 
The "blue" ross looks like a hybrid. There's too much curve to the bill line and the hint of a grin patch. Those with him cannot be the parents (unless there's a blue goose in the wood pile, which is probable) because the blue gene shows incomplete dominance in white geese. Two white birds are homozygous white, so neither could produce a blue.

Clint
Click to expand...

If the blue gene is recessive then both parents can have that gene and through genetic re-combination they can produce a blue offspring. Say WW is all white, Ww is still white with a recessive blue gene since blue is not dominant and mated to another Ww will produce the chances of having a WW- white, Ww- still white, but not homozygous pnenotypically and ww- blue. So out of an egg clutch of say 8-10 there is a chance of the ww showing up. Biologist suggest that through generations that this is where the Blue Ross' was derived. But I do agree that the hooked upper mandible and vestige of the black grin patch suggests a hybrid. We have killed 4 verified Blue Ross' Geese in Arkansas since 1992 plus several hybrids. Here's one of them. Notice the straight line upper mandible where it meets the feathers. We have also noticed that the blue coloration is distinctly darker than a Blue and the white appears a lot more silver. All have had a blue stripe running through the top of the head and all 4 were females. Sex-linked? Haven't gotten an answer on that yet. Considered by many ornithologist to be the rarest naturally occurring waterfowl in North America.

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The blue gene is incompletely dominant, not recessive, and the average ross clutch is 4 eggs.

Clint
 
From what I understand incomplete dominance can be recessive if two of the same combination exists. My genetics professor could be wrong though. Experts, like Frank Todd, call them a blue morph to probably add more confusion and fuel to the fire. I've seen first hand what a Blue Ross' bred to a Pure Ross' produces in a controled enviornment. While 4 eggs may be the average, we've had clutches of 10 from one female and even with 4 eggs the genetic possibilities can be variable both phenotypically and genotypically. However, I won't argue the point.
 
Started to look for my genetics text book from the mid 90's....who knows where it ended up as I sure do not need that as a reference in my office HAHA!!

So I found this instead.

Incomplete dominance is a form of intermediate inheritance in which one allele for a specific trait is not completely dominant over the other allele. This results in a combined phenotype.

Examples: In cross-pollination experiments between red and white snapdragon plants, the resulting offspring are pink. The dominant allele that produces the red color is not completely expressed over the recessive allele that produces the white color.

Was trying to look for an example of a recessive and incomplete dominance..
 
Like a Blue and a Snow having an intergrade or interphase offspring as I read it. So that says that it's not a recessive gene in particular and the offspring is always a combination of the two. Would make one think that all Blue Ross' descended from hybrids and somewhere around the F3 or F4 generation are phenotypically Blue Ross'. Interesting. Frank Todd says the Blue Ross' typically have white bellys which lends credibility to this postulation. Whatever the reason, they are scarce.
 
Got to love the genetics lesson!! My 7th graders are taking their test on simple heredity today. It was all kind of irotic and very interesting.
 
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