On February 8th, Pennsylvania birder and photographer Dustin Welch found a very unusual Cackling Goose mixed in with typical Cackling Geese and Canada Geese near Beltzville State Park, in east-central PA. As you can see from Dustin’s photos below, this Cackling Goose is leucistic with very pale and sandy-colored plumage throughout its body, tail, and primary feathers. The head coloration seems to be fairly typical, although there is a small area of tawny-brown at the base of the back of the bird’s neck. Although leucistic Canada Geese are fairly regular, I have only seen a handful of photos of leucistic Cackling Geese and I am pretty sure no one has found one in Pennsylvania before this.