124 GEESE 



ON THE WATER AND IN FLIGHT. Usually seen in singles or pairs, never 

 in large flocks; darker and larger, and seemingly longer of neck, and with more 

 measured wing-beats than White-fronted Goose; difficult to distinguish in the field 

 from that variety. See White-fronted Goose. 



VOICE. Similar to, but coarser and harsher than that of the White-fronted 

 Goose. 



LIFE STORY 



The Tule Goose (pronounced Tu-lee) is a larger edition of the 

 White-fronted Goose, bearing the same relationship in size to that bird 

 that the Honker does to the Lesser Canada Goose. It winters in limited 

 numbers at certain points in the Sacramento Valley in California, partic- 

 ularly in the Butte and Sutter Basins of that district. 



Its validity as a subspecies was defintely established by Swarth and 

 Bryant (1917) who comparing the two varieties in certain of their hab- 

 its, say: "The two kinds flock separately, for the most part; the larger 

 race is never seen in such big flocks as is customary with the other, but 

 is most frequently noted singly or in pairs; also that while the smaller 

 variety is a common frequenter of grain fields and uplands generally the 

 larger one is preeminently a denizen of open water or of ponds and 

 sloughs surrounded by tules and willows. The predilection of the latter 

 species for such localities has given rise to the local names by which it is 

 known, 'tule goose' or 'timber goose' as contrasted with the upland-fre- 

 quenting 'specklebelly'." 



The location of the breeding grounds of the Tule Goose, up to the 

 summer of 1941, was an unsolved mystery. With the comparatively recent 

 discovery of the nesting grounds of the Blue and Ross's Geese, the Tule 

 Goose was the only one of our wild fowl whose summer range remained 

 unknown. On July 26, 1941, however, Angus Gavin, Hudson's Bay Com- 

 pany's Post Manager at Perry River in the Canadian Arctic, found the 

 Tule Goose nesting on islands and on the banks of a large unnamed lake, 

 east of the first tributary of the Perry River and about six miles from 

 its confluence. Several nests were found. It was while on his way to re- 

 visit the Ross's Goose breeding grounds (which he and Ernest Donovan 

 discovered the year before) that he made the discovery of the summer 

 home of the elusive Tule Goose. Gavin estimated that he saw about 300 

 pairs of these geese in the vicinity. He also found a nesting colony of the 

 smaller White-fronted Geese about six miles away from the nesting Tule 

 Geese, and states that the two varieties of White-fronts kept strictly 

 apart. A specimen of the large Tule Goose and of the smaller White- 

 fronted Goose were shot. From the marked difference in the estimated 

 weights of the two birds, Gavin, a most reliable observer, feels confident 

 that he has probably found the nesting grounds of the Tule Goose. 

 Thus the last outstanding hiatus in our knowledge of the summer breed- 

 ing grounds of North American wildfowl has been filled. The foregoing 

 facts were released in "News Flight" No. 41101, issued by Ducks Un- 

 limited, Winnipeg, Canada. 



