A Greater White-fronted Goose at Gainey Ranch

Counting birds for the Arizona Game and Fish Department was a volunteer activity right up my alley. Conducted on one Saturday every January, it surveyed wild aquatic birds at urban lakes, ponds, and canals throughout the greater Phoenix metropolitan area. This information helps urban planners and wildlife managers manage these populations as well as identify potential opportunities for the public to view the birds. For me, it was also a chance to check out the Gainey Ranch Golf Club in North Scottsdale before their nine o’clock tee time.

The fairways meander around five manmade lakes that lie within a small section of Scottsdale’s Indian Bend Wash - eleven miles of parks, lakes, paths, and golf courses that embellish a flood control project. Migratory birds as well as year-round avian residents thrive in these desert oases.

Over the course of an hour and a half, I tallied all the birds at Gainey, including the commonplace ones like the twelve mallards, the five green herons, the two black-crowned night herons, and the single pied-bill grebe. Almost too numerous to count were the long-distance visitors, the American wigeons, large flocks of which gathered at four of the lakes. In the end, I could only estimate their numbers at over five hundred.

The only other migratory birds were ring-necked ducks - twenty-four of them, precisely - and I found myself wishing for more variety. I had already been encountering American wigeons on my frequent runs through Granada Park near my home so I really wanted something unexpected: green-winged teals, common pintails, hooded mergansers - anything new.

Finally when I observed a flock on the furthest lake from the clubhouse, I noticed an individual that stood out much larger. As I peered through my binoculars, it looked like some sort of goose. It clearly wasn’t a Canada goose - I counted only two that day. So I snapped some photos, already scanning field guides in my head.

There was the chance my goose was some kind of domestic: an escapee from a farm, or a release by a pet owner that could no longer be bothered caring for the once-cuddly chick. However it wasn’t. Instead, it was a greater white-fronted goose, and a lifer.

Normally this goose is found in a pair, flying incredible distances from breeding grounds in the arctic to winter grounds mostly to the south of Arizona, or in one of the Pacific Coast states. This individual might have been a juvenile, traveling solo, having wandered into Scottsdale where it was compelled to stay over for some reason.

I don’t know whether Arizona Game and Fish cared much about this solitary greater white-fronted goose - but I sure did.