Canada hybrid???

[Smellydog]

Seen something weird today while looking for fallow.
A greylag paired with what looked like a grey coloured Canada goose!
Are the cross breeding now?

 

[Sinistral]

Possibly . . .

File:Hybrid goose.jpg - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Heym SR20]

Most of the wildfowl species are pretty closely related and will interbreed and produce fertile young.

But they are flocking species and tend to mate for life. So a greylag will flock with other greylag gooses and mate with a graylag and produce graylag offspring. And this helps to keep the species breeding true.

However the do get lost, especially given that they migrate over long distances. Here on the east coast of Scotland there was a snow goose that was part of a flock of pink footed gooses. They are all pretty much the same size and shape. Snow geese breed in Western Greenland, Pinks also breed in Greenland, so can imagine that the Snow goose got blown off course and found new friends and chances are in bred.

As for Canada’s and Greylags, Greys have become very much more a resident, so rather than flying up to the Arctic to breed, many now breed here in the UK.

UK has a large population of resident Canada geese (although there is now a population that migrates up and down east coast of Scotland). Easy enough for a canada and a greylag to overlap, and looking for a mate and as they say the rest is history.

 

[Ferretlurcher70]

Shot a Canada / barnacle this year

 

[swatty]

The second from bottom knocked around here for a long time my brother shot it on dusk this season believed to be a Canada grey lag cross

 

[potshotpat]

The second from bottom knocked around here for a long time my brother shot it on dusk this season believed to be a Canada grey lag cross

I bet it didn't jump over a wall.

 

[swatty]

I bet it didn't jump over a wall.

No not that one pat

 

[levigsp]

Canada geese readily cross breed with a lot of other breeds same with mallard, they will cross beeed with anything.

 

[Smellydog]

Thank gents. I thought it was a first I had seen. Every day is a learning day

 

[Bonzo dog]

Shot a canada/ greylag cross a few years ago

 

[shakey jake]

ive shot one years ago and seen another on a big resevoir used for rowing around nottingham i think

 

[Smellydog]

ive shot one years ago and seen another on a big resevoir used for rowing around nottingham i think

Do they still let you take a gun on the boats there?

 

[shakey jake]

Do they still let you take a gun on the boats there?

sorry i didnt make sense, the one i shot was on a fnield near stives cambs, went to rowing race with the girlfriend in nottingham.

 

[Smellydog]

sorry i didnt make sense, the one i shot was on a fnield near stives cambs, went to rowing race with the girlfriend in nottingham.

I was pulling your leg mate .

 

[mudman]

I’ve seen pictures of a Canada x Pinkfooted goose. A member on here shot it in northern Scotland.

 

[The hunting Finn]

Shot that hybrid goose a few years ago up here in Finland. The one in the middle is the hybrid. Looks more like a canadian but all colors more towards grey. The size, color and shape of the beak was also strange as the color of the legs.

 

[levigsp]

We got a Mute Swan greylag hybrid last year, and yes it was verified, apparently happens in uk public parks.