Bird #541 — Egyptian Goose

alopochen (from alopos fox-like, and khen goose)  aegyptiaca (Egyptian)

Sunday, April 21, 2019 — 5:05 pm

Böblingen, Germany — Oberer See

We took a tour of the town on Sunday afternoon. We ended up downtown in a pretty park surrounding two small man-made ponds, the Oberer (Upper) See (Lake) and the Unterer (Lower) See. The two were connected by a cement cascade.

As we approached the Oberer See, I saw two Egyptian Geese along the shore. It wasn’t a terribly exciting discovery. They were very tame and allowed close approach. Egyptian Geese have been introduced from Africa and now form a feral population all across Europe and even in some parts of the United States.

The geese paid very little attention to us.

North American Lifer #557

Friday, June 9, 2023 — 8:55 am

Benton County, AR — Charlie Craig State Fish Hatchery

There’s a resident population of Egyptian Geese that are spotted frequently around Rogers, Arkansas. I drove over in March to look for them but missed them on that visit. This time I was successful. There were five of them standing on the berm between hatchery ponds, near a flock of Canada Geese. As I approached, they walked down into the water and swam about in the middle of the pond.

They aren’t officially accepted here as a fully naturalized species, but eBird lists them as provisional, which means they are “breeding in the wild, self-propagating, and have persisted for multiple years but are not yet naturalized.” All that means that when Arkansas agrees that they have officially become a resident species, so will eBird. They show up on my official eBird totals, so I’m recording it here. (They aren’t native to Germany either but are considered naturalized there.) This is the first bird on my list that I saw first in Europe and then saw in North America.

This entry was posted in Birds. Bookmark the permalink.