A Blizzard of Snow Geese

BirdNote^®

A Blizzard of Snow Geese

Written by Bob Sundstrom

This is BirdNote!

[Snow Goose flock calling loudly]

This wild sound — some liken it to the baying of hounds — pours from the sky each autumn along all four North American flyways. [Snow Goose flock calling loudly]

Millions of Snow Geese are returning from their Arctic breeding grounds, thousands of geese in any one flock.

Snow Geese fly high, a cloud of snowflakes against the blue, periodically stopping over en masse at staging points across the continent. They are bound for traditional wintering areas along the South Atlantic and Gulf coasts, and in the western states and Mexico. [Snow Goose flock calling loudly]

Imagine a visit to one of their wintering sites — whether it be the rice fields of southern Louisiana, the Skagit River delta in Washington State, or New Mexico’s Bosque (pronounced bahs-kay) del Apache preserve. As we look across a broad expanse of browns and greens, a pattern of dark soil interspersed with planted fields, our eyes come to rest on one field that appears snow-covered. A closer look reveals 10,000 or more white-feathered Snow Geese covering the field in one immense flock. [Snow Goose flock calling]

And listen, too, when a Bald Eagle flies over and the multitudes take flight in a spectacular avian blizzard, their joined voices all but deafening. [Snow Goose flock calling at even greater volume]

There’s a link to an amazing video on our website, BirdNote.org. I’m Michael Stein.

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Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Recorded by W.W.H. Gunn.
BirdNote’s theme music was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Chris Peterson
© 2015 Tune In to Nature.org     November 2014/2015/2016/2019/2021    Narrator: Michael Stein
ID#113005SNGOKPLU                            SNGO-02b