Introduction

The Snow Goose is a winter visitor, spending November through March in New Jersey. While I've seen the occasional birds mixed in with a flock of Canada Geese, it is more common to see Snow Geese in very large flocks, such as that I saw at Forsythe in February, 2014. I was lucky enough to witness a large number of them noisily taking to the air.

First Encounter

The first time I saw Snow Geese was on January 5, 2013 at "the island" where Interlaken extends into the main part of Deal Lake. A couple of juvenile birds were foraging on the grass. Later, they joined some Canada Geese in the lake, the photo of which serves as a size comparison between the two species of geese. While there is some variation among Canada Geese, most of them are essentially the same size, noticeably larger than Snow Geese.

Subsequent Sightings

Since that first encounter, I've seen Snow Geese in large numbers at Forsythe and I had one rare sighting of a small group at Lake Takanassee in Long Branch. At Forsythe, they spend time foraging quite close together. Every now and then, a significant number of them take to the air to forage elsewhere. This can result in a minor reorganization or a large-scale shift to another location. Here are some pictures from my February 22, 2014 visit to Forsythe:

Exactly one month later I was at Lake Takanassee in Long Branch and there was a small flock of five Snow Geese making their way across the lake:

Blue Morph

Among the Snow Geese at Forsythe on that day in February, 2014, there was a blue morph variant among the more usually white birds. At the time I took this photograph, I was ignorant of their existence and didn't really notice that I had captured one:

Forsythe

This is my shorthand for the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge located in Oceanville, NJ in Atlantic County. One of my favorite birding locations.

This article needs to be updated to include the Dark Morph seen at Wreck Pond in December, 2014.