Home Forums Birds & Dogs Waterfowl Blue Phase Snow Goose

For some reason these are a rarity for us in the Pacific flyway. Like 1 in 5,000. I think the central folks say they make up about 20% of a flock. Hard for us to get a pic here, but Cookie got near one a couple days ago.

Standard version to the left. Probably a couple hundred thousand in the basin now, and they will hang around for about 5 weeks. Don't look up with ones mouth open when they fly over. Seems they wait for the spring wash and wax on the pickup, and then I get hammered.


Have a good one,

That almost looks like a Ross/Snow hybrid

We see a lot of blues. "Eagle heads" like that one are mature

I agree the beak looks short like a Ross, but it might be the angle

Sasha_and_Abby and Wildfowl:

I think one might be correct (Ross). After a close look, I don't think I'd bet a paycheck on my call.
White goes down the neck a bit further on the snows, and the mid-bill gap is wider. Almost like they have lip stick on.


A borrowed image above (Snow). I know Cookie has some previous shots exhibiting clear differentiation, and I'll have to try shaking those out.

Below is an immature bird from the same flock as the first image above, and it's obviously a snow with long bill and for sure lips.


Sorry about my confusion and thanks for catching that,

If it is a Ross/Blue cross, it would be a trophy to anyone that knew what it was!

First pic..I'd bet a Ben Franklin it's a blue phase Ross...We kill a lot of Ross every year usually on the tail end of the migration the short beak and smaller size is the main difference from a snow or blue...

That's a nice blue phase Ross' in first pic!

We are seeing more snow geese every year but still not big numbers. This is the first year any of us have seen blues mixed in.
I'm told that many of our snow geese come out of Siberia.