A market is three women and a goose.

An old proverb

Ross's Goose: Have you seen this bird?

Ross’s Goose

The Ross’s Goose (Chen rossii or Anser rossii) is a North American species of goose.

The Ross’s Goose is a rare vagrant to Western Europe, but is commonly kept in wildfowl collections and so the true frequency of wild birds is hard to ascertain.

Identification Tips:
• Length: 16 inches Wingspan: 51 inches
• Sexes similar
• Small goose
• Different color morphs
• Sometimes hybridizes with similar Snow Goose

White morph-adult
• Entirely white plumage
• Black primaries
• Pink legs and feet
• Pink bill

Blue morph-adult
• White head and upper neck
• Dark lower neck and body
• Pale gray wing upperwing coverts
• Scapulars dark-centered with white edges
• Mostly dark primaries and secondaries
• Pink legs and feet
• Pink bill

Similar species:
White morph Ross’s Goose is extremely similar to the white morph Snow Goose. The Ross’s Goose is smaller with a stubbier bill without the black patch on the mandibles. It also appears rounder-headed with a shorter neck. Immature white morph Snow Goose is darker-backed than the immature white morph Ross’s Goose. The rare blue morph of the Ross’s Goose can be separated from the similar blue morph of the Snow Goose by the same structural characteristics already mentioned. Hybrids between Ross’s and Snow Geese have intermediate characteristics.

This goose breeds in northern Canada, mainly in the Queen Maud Gulf Bird Sanctuary, and winters much further south in the continent in the southern USA and occasionally northern Mexico.

It is named in honor of Bernard R. Ross, a Hudson’s Bay Company factor at Fort Resolution in Canada’s Northwest Territories.