NM - Snow Geese

One of the reasons to come to New Mexico in the wintertime is to see the snow geese who descend in the thousands once the days shorten and it becomes too cold up north. This picture was taken in Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, which is a famous location for birding, and the centerpiece of the first half of my New Mexico trip.

Each morning, just before sunrise, entire flocks of geese take to the air filling the sky.

This photo was taken just a couple of minutes later but facing west, away from the rising sun.

Here is a juvenile blue morph snow goose coming in for a landing. The blue morphs are an unusual genetic variation of Snow Geese. I can tell it is a juvenile because the adult blue morphs have white heads.

The first full day after I arrived, it was snowing - a part of the snow storms and massive cold spell that came down from Canada hitting most of the central portion of the country. This was not exactly the weather I was expecting when I booked this trip months ago.

On my second day, the weather had cleared even if it still remained below freezing. In the late afternoon, I headed north from my hotel in Socorro to Bernardo Wildlife Area, a location also known for thousands of Snow Geese and Sandhill Cranes. The setting sun behind me created some beautiful background colors as Snow Geese landed for the night.

Sometimes entire flocks of geese would land for the night all at once.

It was almost a full moon which, when occasionally paired with a particularly cooperative goose, provided a nice background for photos.

A close cousin of the Snow Goose, but vastly less common, are the Ross’s Goose. While the Ross’s Geese are generally slightly smaller than Snow Geese, the most reliable way to differentiate them is by their beaks. The Snow Geese have a thick dark line between their upper and lower beak often making them look like they are grimacing. On the other hand, the Ross’s Geese do not have this, but do have a rough pale greenish growth on their upper beak where it meets the head. Looking carefully, these differences can be seen in this photo of a Ross’s Goose and the other photos which are of Snow Geese.

This pair of Snow Geese made a beautiful synchronized landing. Below are many of the Sandhill Cranes which will be featured in my next blog post. My posts for this trip are generally going to be topical rather than chronological.

I took this last photo on Sunday morning in Bosque del Apache. I stopped there for sunrise as I headed south from Socorro to the town of Truth or Consequences where I will stay for two nights to photograph birds on some of the lakes created by dams along the Rio Grande. Afterwards, I will spend the final 3 nights of my New Mexico trip exploring the Albuquerque area.