Snow Geese - Winter Migration Stopover in Pleasant Grove

The lesser snow goose (Anser caerulescens caerulescens) breeds in the Arctic tundra, and each year migrates on about a 3,000-mile journey to winter in the temperate climates of California and Mexico, then returns to its northern breeding grounds in late winter or early spring. In California, we see two migrating populations, the western Arctic population and the Wrengel Island population, make their way along the Pacific Flyway. During this long migration, like all migrating waterfowl, the geese pick "rest stops" along their route--and California's Central Valley is extremely important for providing such stops with ample forage to fuel the rest of their journey. It is also where the Wrengel Island population of snow goose makes its wintering home. The Central Valley is a very threatened habitat for migrating geese. Most of the natural wetlands in California have been converted to urban or agricultural development. Wildlife-friendly agriculture and managed seasonal wetlands typically found in wildlife refuges have become the substitute for stopover sites, where food is subsidized with waste grains and fallow corn stubble, and water is manually pumped in for appropriate flooding. However, these sites may also be threatened by lack of available water, due to California's severe drought. 

When snow geese are seen at a migration stopover or on a wintering ground, they are sometimes seen as blankets of white flocks numbering in the thousands. Mixed into these flocks are the similar looking Ross' geese, which have an overlapping distribution and migration route with the lessers. It's very difficult to tell the species apart, and in some cases flocks contain hybrids between the two. 

People come from all over to see these amazingly large flocks of geese, and festivals are organized around the phenomenon, such as the annual snow goose festival that takes place in Chico, California. While that sounds like a few days loaded with fun, I didn't need to attend such an event to see the migrating geese. All I needed to do was be a good daughter and offer to help my parents, who live in Magalia, California, haul large piles of pine needles off of their property. When I travel, I generally like to avoid crowded highways and freeways and take the scenic routes that are a bit off the beaten path. Between the busy highways of State-Route 99 and State-Route 160, from the Sacramento area to Marysville, is a very pleasant ride through the agricultural fields along Pleasant Grove Road, which we access from Baseline-Riego Road out of Roseville. Just north of the little community of Pleasant Grove and the road to Nicolaus, we and a few other motorists came to a dead stop at the sight of the enormous flock of snow geese foraging in one of the fields. The numbers were undoubtedly in the thousands, the calls were thunderous, and the nearly synchronized lifts from the ground when the geese were spooked painted the sky with strokes of black and white emerging from the solid white base of roosting birds on the ground. 

Though it made us slightly late for pine-needle duty, we managed to get a couple of photographs and a little bit of video. Seeing is believing, but it was really one of those "you had to be there" moments. This five-minute sidetrack certainly whetted the appetite for spending time at one of those week-long festivals.