Uncover The Secrets Of Snow Geese: All You Need To Know

Imagine driving through a snowy, cold landscape. Not much traffic, so you are relaxed and scanning the road in front of you. Suddenly, hundreds, no thousands of birds are flying over. When you stop the car on the side of the road and look up in awe and admiration, listening to the honking, you realize these are geese. But not the “normal” Canada geese. No, you are witnessing the majestic Snow Geese migration!

This is exactly what happened to us years ago and what started our fascination with these geese. Because they migrate thousands of miles each year, there are many locations where you can find and observe them.

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What Are Snow Geese?

Looking at a snow goose, the name is pretty obvious. Not only are they white as snow, but we often get to see them in the snow. At least during migration.

Are they only found in snowy areas?

Although the name implies their love of snow, these geese are actually smart enough to follow the sun. During the summer, they nest and raise their young far north, on the arctic tundras in Canada and Alaska. Lots of daylight to forage for food.

Once the summer season is over, they head South. So I would conclude that they do not particularly like snow. Just like human snow birds, they fly to Florida and Mexico.

Up North, they show up in such great numbers that they have become a favorite snack for polar bears.

So snow geese are white?

Well, it would be nice if they would live up to their name in appearance, since we all know that snow is white. So yes, many of the birds are white with black wingtips, but not all of them are.

Meet the Blue Goose, which is still a snow goose, just a so called “color morph”. Caused by a genetic mutation, they are mostly dark colored.

Usually these morphs are identified by calling them “snows” and “blues”.

Well, at least the blue goose is blue, right?

To be honest, not sure who came up with the name “blue morph” because to me it looks more like dark-grey, even close to black.

As you can see, the blue morph still has a white head, but the rest of the body is dark grey.

What about the light grey geese?

When you observe a gaggle of snow geese, you might notice that there are any light grey ones in between all the white ones. If they don’t seem dark enough to call them “blue”, then you are looking at juveniles.

When do Snow Geese Migrate?

Since these birds breed on the Arctic tundra, and overwinter close to, or in Mexico, they migrate during the shoulder seasons. During the months of October and November, you can experience their migration toward the South.

Then in February and March, they will be on their way back to their breeding grounds, usually in huge flocks. When you check ebird for your local area, you can keep an eye out for sightings. Of course, even better if you add your own sighting to ebird, they can always use more citizen scientists.

Where Can I watch Snow Geese?

Dead Creek WMA, Vermont

A few years ago, when we noticed thousands of geese flying over our car on our way to Montreal, we quickly stopped the car and got out to admire them. They were loud, beautiful, and breath taking. Later we figured out they were snow geese.

This was amazing enough to us, that we researched where we could see them “locally”. So the day after Thanksgiving, we drove to the Dead Creek Wildlife Management Area on our wild goose chase. When we arrived at VT Route 17 W, the viewing area, we had no clue whether we actually would see any. While driving there from our New Hampshire home, we saw no birds at all, so that wasn’t very encouraging.

Still, hope springs eternal. So when we got out of the car and saw TWO snow geese, we were quite excited.

Next sighting was mallards… Not quite as exciting.

Bravely suppressing our slight disappointment we turned around.
And there were at least a THOUSAND white geese!!!!!!

Wow. Fall is a good time to see those geese here at Dead Creek, but I bet they are there in spring also.

Montmagny, Quebec, Canada

When one of our friends told us about a yearly snow geese festival in her town close to Quebec City, we knew we had to visit. So we first went whale watching in the St Lawrence and then spent a day visiting Montmagny and thousands of migrating snow geese.

We started the day by taking the ferry from Quebec City to Lévis, on the other side of the river. Not only was it fun to be on the water, we also got a spectacular view of Château Frontenac.

Once you debark from the ferry, it is about a 45 minutes drive to Montmagny. And then, it is time to enjoy bird watching at the Montmagny Migratory Bird Sanctuary.

Unlike Vermont, we immediately noticed the thousands of geese and spent many happy hours watching and listening to them. On our way back we drove on a secondary road close to the river, and discovered additional vantage points to see even more of them.

At some of these spots, we noticed the migrating snow geese close to a gaggle of Canada geese which are much bigger. Reading about them, they usually don’t mix, which fits with what we saw here, they all tended to stay within their own groups.

We also were happy to notice some blue morphs, and lots of juveniles.

After all the birding excitement, we spent the next day visiting the Quebec Parliament building.

Campbell River, BC, Canada

After seeing snow geese in the Eastern half of North America, we were ready to find them in the Western half. Or actually, they found us, we had no idea we would see them when we visited friends on Victoria Island. This was late October, so in hind sight, this was definitely a good time to see migrating birds, including snow geese.

Most of the time we “just” saw bald eagles, and tons of water birds. Then one day, we were driving around and there they were!

Again, they were hanging out with Canada geese, but geese of a feather did flock together within the bigger group. That was such an delightfully unexpected encounter! Now we know that Vancouver Island is on the Western snow geese migration flyway.

Stanley Park, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

After our fun trip to Victoria on Vancouver Island, we did visit a friend in Vancouver, which is strangely enough not on Vancouver Island. While visiting Stanley Park, we noticed a gaggle of Canada geese, which seemed fitting in Canada.

Suddenly we realized there were two white geese migrating together with the Canada geese. Another snow goose sighting for our life list! So if you find yourself in Victoria any time during spring or fall migration, go check out Stanley Park!

Hanover, New Hampshire, USA

After all the traveling we had to undertake to watch these birds, we were totally surprised one day in early March when we noticed one on our local golf course! Because it is so unusual to see them by themselves, I checked with one of my birding groups.

Everyone agreed “Yup, that was a snow geese!” Clearly, birding is like a box of chocolate, you never know what you’re gonna get!

Conclusion on Snow Geese Sojourns

Hope you have enjoyed meeting the snow goose and learning more about snow geese migration. Tell me about your snow geese sightings in the comments! Where did you see them? Have you ever seen them?

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