This would make the fifth county, Sagadahoc, to have a record in Maine--Cumberland, Washington, Lincoln, and Aroostook being the others. I don't know yet whether this flock of geese was seen from a publicly viewable location. Others notified me of this report, and I only returned home a short while ago to see this. I thought it worth getting the word out. Maybe Robin can chime in with access possibilities.
I think this would be a first record for any Christmas Bird Count in the United States and reflects the dramatic increase in records here following the population increase shown by this species over the past two decades. There's nothing wrong with finding a good bird and having it turn out better! And this sort of reflects the slow adaptation we have as birders to the changing status of species around us. This isn't the first Pink-footed Goose that was misidentified as something else. Previous Maine birds were at first thought to be Bean Goose and Graylag Goose. (Both of those species are now ones that should be on our radar, and a Bean Goose, Tundra flavor, has recently been in Nova Scotia.) It took a while to adjust to Greenland Greater White-fronted Geese showing up regularly in North America, and its going to take a while to incorporate the other European gray geese into our repertoire.
Louis Bevier
Fairfield
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