Summary: Fairly Common Spring and Fall migrant along the road system, mostly seen flying over in large flocks of 100 to several hundred birds. Occasional in Summer and Rare in Winter along the road system. More common away from town. Probably a regular breeder in the area, though only occasionally along the road system.

	Spring	Summer	Fall	Winter
Sitka Road System	Fairly Common	Occasional	Fairly Common	Rare
Sitka Area*	Common	?	Common	Uncommon
*Unless otherwise noted, occurrence in the Sitka Area is unknown or presumed similar to that on the road system

Typical Fall Migration: August through November, peak in late October

With the recent split of Cackling Goose from Canada Goose, there is some uncertainty regarding the occurrence and abundance of this species, though it seems likely the majority of past reports have probably been of the subspecies still considered Canada Goose, rather than those now called Cackling Goose.

Canada Geese migrate over Sitka in large numbers. They are sometimes seen on the ground around town, though reports are usually not frequent and only for small numbers (relative to the large flocks seen flying in migration). It is expected that this species may be found on the ground more often and in greater abundance in Sitka area locations that are not on the road system. Canada Goose has frequently been seen on the Christmas Bird Count, though many of those observations probably took place in one of the off-road system bays that are part of the count circle.

Canada Geese are known to breed in the area, and pre-flight young have been observed on at least one occasion along the road system. I am not certain how frequently nesting occurs in the general area, however.

J Dan Webster
Common migrant and resident. Based only on collected, carefully identified specimens, (cf. Delacour 1951 and Gabrielson and Lincoln 1959) the race B. c. fulva nests locally and remains throughout the year (Willett 1914); B. c. minima migrates through in numbers (Webster 1941). Probably other subspecies, also, occur as migrants. The species was recorded on 19 of the 28 Christmas counts.

Marge Ward:
Old-timers sometimes called these geese the ‘home guard’ and noted that many of the bays in the Sitka area that stayed open in winter would have a small flock of Canada Geese that remained there for the winter, unless really bad weather pushed them out.

My Comments:
One of my first recollections involving Canada Geese in the Sitka area took place on a hike to Medvejie Lake in the mid 1990s. A friend and I were paddling across the lake when we saw something swimming beneath us in the very clear water. I could not figure out what sort of animal it might be, though I was thinking some sort of mammal. We stopped paddling, and it went past us, eventually popping up some distance ahead. I could see then that it was a young Canada Goose, still too young to fly. A little later we saw the rest of its family, though I do not recall how many young there were now.

Observation Notes:
16 October 2007: Lone Canada Goose on Sheldon Jackson Quad
4-5 April 2007: 6 Canada Geese on flats near tide pool at Totem Park
Late April 2006: ~1000 reported, mostly in flight, from 6 day kayaking trip to Kruzof Island (reported by Paul Norwood on Sitka Birds e-mail list)
29 April 2006: 17+ observed on flats at Port Krestof, a larger flock that were probably Canada Geese flew off just as I arrived.
8 May 2004: 10+ observed on upper intertidal flats at Fish Bay.
Mid 1990s: Pair with pre-flight young observed on Medvejie Lake.