By Sally Siko
It’s actually getting chilly-ish 😂temperature wise here in NC this weekend.
These crisp cool mornings are getting me excited for the months of wintertime birding ahead.
Watching the sun come up over the marsh with a cup of hot coffee in one hand and a camera in the other, scanning the grass at the waters edge for Snow Geese is my kinda vibe.
The Greater Snow Goose is a wintertime visitor to North Carolina and are often found in great numbers (by the thousands!) in the OBX.
Each year, thousands of them descend onto the farm fields and tidewater marshes to feed and roost during the cooler months.
Dedicated herbivores, their diet consists of leaves, grass, seeds and spilt grain found in agricultural fields.
In fact, I’ve sometimes had better luck finding Snow Geese on land than on the water which is why I enjoyed photographing this flock chilling on the shore.
Interestingly, only one population of Greater Snow Geese exists in the entire world.
In addition, the species movements as a whole is almost entirely confined to the Atlantic flyway of North America.
Greater Snow Geese breed in the Canadian High Arctic, and on the western coast of Greenland. This makes the Greater Snow Goose one of the most northerly breeding geese in the world.
These beauties arrived in N.C. during December with numbers swelling through early February. They’ll then stick around through late March before they make the trip north again.
Photos by @sally_siko of @bestlife_birding captured on my mighty mirrorless monster, the @canonusa #R5