TULE GOOSE 



125 



The habits and behaviour of this goose are dealt with in an article 

 by Moffitt (1926) who says that he found the Tule Goose only along 

 the heavily wooded banks of the larger sloughs of Butte and Sutler coun- 

 ties of California, "where they apparently remain throughout the day, 

 feeding in the small ponds formed by openings in the heavy tule growth 

 of the surrounding overflowed marsh. Here they may be seen to best 

 advantage in the morning between seven or eight and ten o'clock, when 

 nearly all other geese, including the smaller White-fronted, are absent 

 from the marshes, having repaired to the stubble fields for their morning 

 meal. At this time, due to the absence of other geese, they are more no- 

 ticeable, and may often be seen changing their positions by low flights 

 over the marsh. After ten or eleven o'clock, due to the return of other 

 geese to the tule swamps, where they loaf until time for the evening 

 feeding, the Tule Geese are naturally much less in evidence. This, and 

 the fact that only once have I noted them in barley fields, suggests that 

 this form may obtain most of its food in the marshes rather than subsist- 

 ing in large part on grain, like other geese of the region." The barley 

 field referred to "more nearly resembles the chosen wooded habitat of 

 the bird than the usual conception of a grain field, for, situated on a 

 promontory formed by a sharp bend of the river, of some hundred odd 

 acres extent, and liberally dotted with large Valley Oaks, with the river on 

 the other side of the bordering levees, it indeed assumed such characters. 



"In flight, due to large size 

 and more than proportionate- 

 ly longer neck . . . and also, I 

 believe, to slower, more mea- 

 sured wing beats, the Tule 

 Goose may be distinguished 

 from its smaller relative in 

 the field. White-fronted Geese 

 usually fly about at a consid- 

 erable elevation, at least 300 

 to 400 feet above the ground, 

 and sometimes much higher. 

 In alighting they ordinarily 

 descend in a series of cautious 

 circles without any member 

 of the flock uttering a sound 

 (except a low and peculiar 

 nasal wheeze, not audible un- 

 less the birds are in close 

 proximity, and evidently a 

 cautionary note) until with- 

 in about 25 feet of the 

 ground, when all simultane- 

 ously start a high-pitched 



