[obol] Escaped birds

[Alan Contreras]

Setting aside FADU Feet for now, the whole subject of what constitutes a
"wild" bird can get a little murky.  Is the question where and under what
conditions it hatched?  What if it flies all over the world for years
afterward?  What if it was hatched in the wild, captured and treated for an
illness for three months, then released and spends years in the wild?

I don't see why the conditions of hatching are necessarily the sole
determinant of status in a bird like a goose, crane or another species that
has such vast migrations.  It's not as though they are like a Eurasian Tree
Sparrow that stays more or less where it hatched. One can certainly have
some fascinating discussions about Trumpeter Swans in North America, for
example.

I recall seeing a Barnacle Goose at Finley NWR maybe 25 years ago.  It was
hanging out with a large flock of Duskies as I recall.  As far as I know, no
one knows where it came from or went to, but it surely came and went, it
didn't waddle into a farm pond and honk for its dinner.  Assuming that it
escaped at some point in its life from a breeder, does it spend its whole
life as an "escape" even if it lives ten more years, breeds with another one
somewhere and has a normal goosy life?

-- 
Alan Contreras
EUGENE, OREGON
acontrer at mindspring.com