February 12, 2007
An archival painting of the Pink-footed goose (Anser brachyrhynchus).
The legs are stunning. They are bright pink, almost bubble-gum pink. It’s very exciting….They are beautiful geese. Most people had never seen these geese before….What we are looking at is whether the pink-footed geese, with their westward shift [in Greenland] are now migrating with some of the white-fronted geese. It could be theorized that all of these geese have arrived together. It’s an interesting ornithological puzzle.Rachel Farrell, Rhode Island’s leading bird expert, while observing the pair of pinked-foot geese at Hammersmith Farm in Newport.
The pink-footed goose, a bird that is relatively common in Europe, is rare here. The pair making a winter 2007 appearance around Newport, Rhode Island may be the same pair that was apparently seen in Connecticut last year.
Only 15 different pink-footed geese records (sightings of distinct specimens) have reportedly ever been made in the USA.
For more information, read today’s Providence Journal article, “A Wild Goose Chase” by Richard Salit.
An archival painting of the Pink-Headed Duck (Netta caryophyllacea).
The pink-footed goose is not to be confused with the Pink-Headed Duck, the almost legendary avian cryptid from Nepal, supposedly extinct.
Sightings persist of the Pink-Headed Duck. These almost mystic encounters have resulted in one famed 1991 book on the bird, Rory Nugent’s The Search for the Pink-Headed Duck.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
Filed under Breaking News, Cryptotourism, CryptoZoo News, Cryptozoology, Extinct, Eyewitness Accounts, New Species, Out of Place