Just one snow goose.
Where were all the others?
Let me explain.
Back in 2019 I had the good fortune to travel to San Antonio, New Mexico and witness one of nature’s great spectacles at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge.
If you’ve never heard of it, Bosque del Apache is something of a legend among birders worth their salt. (I have never fully understood that expression. Worth their salt? Why salt? But let’s face it — it adds color to the story and makes the writer sound worldly.)
Anyway.
Every winter, tens of thousands of Snow Goose descend on that refuge like a feathery blizzard with wings. They breed way up in the Arctic tundra — the kind of place where the wind can sandblast your eyebrows off — and then migrate thousands of miles south to winter in the United States.
Bosque del Apache is one of their favorite pit stops.
At sunrise something remarkable happens.
The geese lift off.
Not a few.
Not a couple hundred.
Thousands.
The sky fills with white wings and black wingtips until it looks like someone shook a giant snow globe over the Rio Grande Valley. The sound is unforgettable — a roaring whoosh of wings mixed with the constant chatter of geese arguing about whose turn it was to lead the V-formation.
It’s one of the great wildlife spectacles in North America.
So naturally, after seeing that, I assumed snow geese always travel in enormous flocks.
Wrong.
Fast-forward to a quiet day closer to home. I’m scanning a group of Canada Goose — big birds, black necks, white chinstrap, the usual neighborhood honkers conducting their daily lawn-inspection duties.
And there he was.
One.
A single snow goose standing in the middle of them like a guy who accidentally walked into the wrong family reunion.
White body. Pink bill. Black wing tips folded neatly at his sides.
No other snow geese anywhere.
Just him.
Now it turns out this happens more often than you’d think. A lone snow goose will sometimes attach itself to a flock of Canada geese during migration. Safety in numbers, navigational confusion, or maybe he simply missed the last snow-goose conference call about departure times.
Birders even have a habit of scanning Canada goose flocks looking for “the one white goose.”
And there he was.
Just one snow goose.
Which proves something I’ve learned over and over again while wandering around with a camera and a big lens.
Nature loves the spectacular.
But sometimes…
it also enjoys a good punchline.
I’d love to share my posts with you. If you subscribe, they’ll come straight to your inbox—most days, like a little note from me to you. It means a lot to know you’re reading along.
Browse my complete art portfolio and shop for prints at imagesbygacioe.shop
Leave a Reply