Snow goose

Voice

A high, nasal, almost dog-like bark: la-look or a repeated howk-howk, faster and shriller than Greylag or White-fronted Goose. Large flocks produce continuous yapping. In Europe it is heard most often from birds lifting off among other geese, from October to March.

Identification

A medium-sized, short-necked goose, snow white with sharply cut black primaries. The heavy pink bill shows a black line along the cutting edge, the grinning patch, and that is the best single feature. The dark morph, the Blue Goose, has a white head and neck on a slate-brown body. Juveniles are dingy grey with a dark bill and dark legs.

Confusion species

Ross's Goose is clearly smaller, with a short triangular bill lacking a grinning patch and a bluish warty base. White farmyard and feral domestic geese account for most false claims: they are heavier-bodied, orange-billed and orange-legged, and lack black primaries. Always take bill colour, leg colour and wingtips together.

Habitat

Outside the breeding season on grassland, arable, saltmarsh and flooded polder, almost always in the company of other geese. Roosts on open water and mudflats. Breeds in dense colonies on arctic tundra, often close to the coast and near colonies of eiders or skuas that give some protection.

Range and movements

It breeds across arctic Canada, Alaska and north-east Siberia and winters in the United States and Mexico. In the Netherlands most records concern feral birds from north-west European park populations, which breed in the Wadden Sea area among others. Genuine wild birds arrive rarely with arctic White-fronts. In Spain it is a vagrant.

• Breeding (summer)
• Winter
• Passage
• Migration direction
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

Where and when to look

October to March, among the White-fronted and Barnacle Geese of the northern polders and the Wadden islands. Scan big flocks for a white block that does not belong, and work the flock systematically, since the bird often stands at the back. Check for rings and for behaviour: feral birds let people approach closely.

Conservation status

In North America the population has grown explosively, to the point where overgrazing of arctic tundra has led to liberal control shooting. The feral European population stays small but persists and is slowly spreading. Concerns centre on hybridisation with other geese and on the confusion this creates when assessing genuine vagrants.