Voting Comments

1^st Round Voting Comments

Record #: 41-B-06

Cackling Goose

1st Round: 6-1
2nd Round: 3-4
3rd Round: 3-4
NOT ACCEPT

1^st Round (6 Accept, 1 Reject)	2^nd Round (4 Accept, 3 Reject)	3^rd Round (4 Accept, 3 Reject)
010-11-2006. Shirley Sturts -- Accept Description and photo are consistant with this species.	02-16-2007. Shirley Sturts -- Accept I'm staying with my first vote - to accept. I am satisfied from the description and photograph that this was a Cackling Goose.	08-13-2007. Shirley Sturts -- Accept I'm staying with my accept vote. I'm going more from Terry's description than from the photograph (which is at a distance) Terry describes the bird as: "This bird was a very small goose with a very short bill with a very short neck and small round head. This bird also had a very dark breast and with no sun was unable to see the purplish color".
010-12-2006. Chuck Trost -- Accept The pohoto was convincing, but the description was minimal.	03-12-2007. chuck trost -- Accept If I saw the bird in the photo I'd call it a cackling goose - the small size, the short neck, rounded head, and small bill all speak cackling to me.	09-06-2007. chuck trost -- Accept I'm sticking with my guns too - it looks like a cackler to me.
10/13/06. Cliff Weisse -- Reject, specific identification not established The bird in the photo looks smaller and short necked and may be a Cackling Goose but the photo isn't sharp enough to see the necessary details of the head and bill. The description does not give details of bill shape or angle of forehead.	2/21/2007. Cliff Weisse -- Reject, specific identification not established I still feel the details of the head and bill structure are not suitably displayed in the photo. On second look the bill of the smaller appearing bird on the left looks short, but it also look shallow at the base and proportionately very similar to the Canada Geese in the photo. In addition the head appears quite rounded, again similar in proportion to the Canada Geese in the photo. Because of the absence of any description of bill or head shape in the written report these features must be interpretted from the photo alone. Size can be very misleading in photos and this individual is far enough from the other birds in the photo that I don't think size can be accurately judged in this photo. Again, I think this bird may be a Cackling Goose but the photo is not sharp or large enough to clearly show the necessary details of bill/head structure to confirm the ID. In my opinion the apparent shape of the bill in the photo, which may well be an artifact of the photo or the bird's posture, casts doubt on the identification instead of providing support. I would have been comfortable accepting this report had there been a written description of the bill and/or head shape to clear up doubts created by the photo.	8/15/07. Cliff Weisse -- Reject, specific identification not established See previous comments
010-16-2006. Dave Trochlell -- Accept Terry's photo and text make a convincing case for a "minima" Cackling Goose record.	03-04-2007. Dave Trochlell -- Accept I'm going to "stick to my guns" on this one and vote again to accept this candidate as a record.	08-16-2007. Dave Trochlell -- Reject, specific identification not established I'm going to change course here to vote for a rejection of this record. I'm now convinced that the image is a bit too distant and unclear for us to make a conclusive identification of the smaller goose.
11-4-06. Carlisle -- Accept Good photo; report brief but sufficient.	6-29-07. Carlisle -- Accept I'm still inclined to accept though I couldn't say with certainty which subspecies. However, the bird looks sufficiently smaller than nearby Canadas and appears to possess Cackling traits.	8-16-07. Carlisle -- Accept Sticking w/ 2nd round comments, I vote accept. Though details are lacking, to me the head/bill shape (particularly a steeper-looking forehead than the larger Canadas in the picture) look right for Cackling.
11/11/2006. Charles Swift -- Accept Photo and description convincing for minima subspecies.	4/8/07. Charles Swift -- Reject, specific identification not established Concur with Cliff. It may well be a Cackling but detail is not sifficient. (Is Branta canadensis parvipes safely eliminated??).	8/23/07. Charles Swift -- Reject, specific identification not established I agree with Cliff that the photo in and of itself is not sufficiently convincing.
01-02-2007. dumroese -- Accept The description along with the photo appear to me to be a CAGO [sic; CACG = Cackling Goose]. This would not be the first sighting of this species by this observer.	9 August 2007. Hardy -- Reject, specific identification not established Photo is not sufficient to determine that this small goose is indeed a CACG, and not a small CANG.	23 August 2007. Hardy -- Reject, specific identification not established There is too much doubt about the identification to accept this record.