Common Goldeneye “Consolation Prize”, Greenville, SC – December 20, 2019

On the 19th I received a text from Michael Robertson saying that he might have just found a Cackling Goose mixed in with Canadas at Lake Robinson.  Cackling Goose is an exceptional rarity in SC, with just one prior record for the state.  He sent me photos of 3 of the 4 small geese, and at least 2 seemed to be good candidates.  Then I saw additional photos from both Michael and Gary Harbour and now I was thinking all 4 could be Cackling Geese.  So I decided to head to Lake Robinson early the next morning to try to see them for myself.

I arrived shortly after dawn on the morning of the 20th and Michael was already at the viewing platform.  Unfortunately, there was just 1 Canada Goose in sight and no small geese.  We took a short drive to Fews Bridge Road to get a different view of the lake, and found a small flock of Canadas but nothing else.  Then we headed back to the main viewing platform and noticed some Canadas in the far distance foraging on a bank.  With a bit of searching we found the flock of Canadas at the edge of a subdivision.  Although I was cautiously hopeful that the Cackling’s would be in with them, the flock just consisted of Canadas.  It was about the same number that Michael and Gary had the previous day, so we likely had re-found that same flock of Canadas but the smaller geese had moved on.  Ugh...

I had commitments at home to tend to, so left after we concluded that this truly had become the proverbial “wild goose chase”.  Then minutes later Michael called to say he had spotted a Common Goldeneye.  Or I should say THE Common Goldeneye – a male that was returning for the 3^rd consecutive winter at small Jordan Pond.  Michael had shown me this spot a month earlier on one of our scouting trips.  Within minutes I had turned around and at Jordan Pond where Michael was standing with the Goldeneye in view.  A nice consolation prize for missing the Cackling Geese, though I would have preferred seeing the super rare geese instead.  That gives me 253 in SC – my 21st new species for the state since moving to the Carolinas in late August.

My statebird map for Common Goldeneye is inserted below – solid shaded states are those where I’ve seen this species; cross-hatched states are those where it is regular but I haven’t seen it yet.  I just need it in 4 more states and DC where it is a migrant or wintering species.  

As a postscript to the small Geese sighting – I shared the photos of the SC birds with a couple of my fellow NH Rare Bird Committee members and they too feel that these were indeed Richardson’s Cackling Geese.  These were later apparently accepted as a second state record.