Last Saturday it was gorgeous outside. Sunny, very warm temps and blue sky, and then, for about 45 minutes, it began to snow! However, the snow was not cold and did not stick to the ground. It was feathered, landed on the ground, flew above the ground, circled in the sky overhead and was extremely noisy! It wasn’t actually frozen precipitation, the “storm” was a large flock of Snow geese-approximately 20,000+. 
I was standing near a cut corn field in Berks County, as the thick, gale of birds descended into the field from every direction. The blue sky was dotted with loud, white objects that looked like twinkling stars against an indigo background. There were so many I didn’t know where to focus my camera. The excitement caused me to drop one of my lenses and it nearly rolled into a groundhog hole I was standing next to. For nearly 30 minutes, they kept coming, instinctively knowing their safety was in their numbers. I felt like I was in the bubble of a snow globe that someone had just shaken. It was an awesome sight! 
Snow geese (Chen caerulescens) are only visitors to Pennsylvania, passing through our state during their southern migrations in late fall/early winter, and then again in the spring as they head back north. They overwinter in the coastal wetlands, bays and flooded fields in the Mid-Atlantic States and Carolinas, as well as parts of Texas and into Mexico. In the Pacific Flyway they winter in the mild, farm valleys of Washington and Oregon. Where do they come from and return to? The Arctic tundra in Greenland, Canada, Alaska and parts of Siberia. This is where the geese breed and raise young during the short Arctic summers.
If you could see these large flocks, you would never believe their population was once at critical levels in the early 1900’s. Their numbers dropped so low that hunting was banned for the species in the Eastern U.S. Since then, they’ve staged an incredible comeback. In fact, their population has grown so sizeable that they’re eating themselves (and other species) “out of house and home” in their tundra habitat. Snow geese, like other geese species, are grazers. They eat grasses and many other low-growing forbs, and will munch any part of the plant including the leaves, stem, seed, flower and root.
As I stood there staring in wonder at the thousands of large, white (and slightly black) birds flying and cackling all around me, I couldn’t help thinking that I was experiencing a blizzard of feathers, a snow storm of geese!
Happy New Year!