ComingsBirds.com/Birdgroups-A-L

To the Beauty of Birds

Next to the Sandhill Cranes the Snow Goose Chen caerulescens is one of the most awesomely beautiful birds of the Bosque del Apache. The awesomeness comes from both the beauty of the bird and its shear numbers - 26,500 the day we were there. These numbers can be appreciated from photos 9288 and 2809 and of the birds in flight (see the Snow Goose in Flight page). Both on the pond and in flight they seem to go on forever.
One of the distinctive features of the Snow Goose is its sardonic smile produced by the black “grin patch” (photo 9271). This close-up photo also shows the forward curvature of the edge of the bill as opposed to the straight edge of the Ross’s Goose.
The juveniles can be dark (photos 9246, 9254) or white-grey with a dark eye line (photo 9232). The larger Greater Snow Goose may also have a yellowish tint of the feathers behind the bill (9213).

Videos of the Snow Goose are presented on the Bird Movies page.

Snow Goose