I first went to Bosque del Apache to see 20,000 snow geese gathered in one spot at one time. As you can see from the previous post, I was not disappointed! This year the geese seemed to congregate in smaller groups than on my previous visits and the spectacular blast-offs (what we call thousands of birds rising as one) were largely missing.  My images, as a result, of Snow Geese this year are different than before.

The Snow Geese migrate to Bosque from Canada. The largest have wing spans up to 56 inches and weigh up to 7.4 pounds.  There are genetic variations of Snow Geese as they come in different varieties, colors, and sizes.  Making matters worse is the Ross's Goose that looks like a Snow Goose but is a different species.

Here are two Geese hanging out in good light:

And four all white geese:

Remember that old joke "Why did the geese cross the road?"  The answer was: "To get to the other side!"  Well, here's the Bosque del Apache version: 

No, I don't know why they are all in a row and why they are crossing this little patch of water ... maybe they just wanted to get to the other side!  :)

I do know, though,  why geese fly in a V formation...  Doing so is more efficient than flying in some other formation.  It is a bit complicated but it has to do with wingtip vortices.  They are the phenomena that cause problems for airplanes following each other.  You can read all about it here: http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/01/15/birds-that-fly-in-a-v-formation-use-an-amazing-trick/ 

This image shows a small flight of geese in a "V" as they descend to land:

Here are two backlit images of flying geese:

And:

But this is the prettiest of the geese flight shots with beautiful sunset light:

I'll close this post with a black and white image of a small group of geese as they prepared to bed down for the night:

As always, thanks for looking!

Adam

P.S. Do you know why these birds "bed down" in water?  The answer will be forthcoming in the next post.