I don’t know if there is only one feathered goose at Jerra wetlands but this bird was amongst the cattle until my presence when flew to water and took up with some swans. It’s a handsome bird, a couple of experts on flickr refused to discuss it, but one suggested it was “a crossbred domestic goose carrying the gene for what we call a crest in Oz. This one looks mainly crested Pilgrim with a bit of Ebden and a drop of Toulouse. Probably a reject from a breeding program that was trying for good crested Pilgrims.”
If that’s a good summary (and from images of these breeds it seems likely), then plumage and eye colour would agree it’s a male.
As I understand it the bump or crest or tuft is an optional extra that can be bred into many breeds.
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From: Geoffrey Dabb [
Sent: Friday, 9 March 2012 11:22
To:
Subject: [canberrabirds] Where's our brolga?
… On a marginally related issue, yesterday Elizabeth raised with me the matter of the feral goose that haunts the eastern end of LBG. I think this is the one that haunts the channel between the Molonglo and Jerra Creek and is usually only seen by kayakers. There is a similar one on the Q’beyan sewage ponds, and it would be no surprise if it had been flushed out by the recent rain, but my belief, subject to correction by goose specialists, is that the channel bird is a male and the QBSW one is a female.
