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Snow Goose | Anser caerulescens
Sneeuwgans | Ánsar nival
The Snow Goose is a medium-sized goose of the North American and East Siberian Arctic, occurring in two colour morphs: a white one with black primaries and a dark 'blue' morph with a white head. In the Caribbean it is a rare winter visitor. Usually single birds or small groups are involved, often young birds, which sometimes stay for weeks at the same site.
Voice
A high, nasal, barking houk or whouk, mainly in flight; flocks call constantly.
Recording: Stanislas Wroza — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
64–79 cm. The white morph is entirely white with black primaries, visible mainly in flight. The bill is pink with a black 'grin patch': a dark strip along the cutting edges. The legs are pink. The blue morph has a white head and upper neck and a dark grey-brown body, with pale grey wing coverts. Head and neck of adults are sometimes stained rusty. Juveniles are dingy grey (white morph) or uniformly dark grey-brown (blue morph), with dark bill and legs. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Greater White-fronted Goose Anser albifrons, also a rare visitor, is grey-brown with a white blaze and black bars on the belly; juvenile White-fronts can resemble juvenile blue Snow Geese but have orange legs. Ross's Goose Anser rossii is smaller, with a short, triangular bill lacking a black grin patch. Domestic geese often have an orange bill and no black primaries. In flight white Snow Geese recall white egrets or Wood Stork Mycteria americana, but geese fly with neck outstretched and rapid beats.
Habitat
In the region at fresh and brackish ponds and marshes, on grassland and pasture, and on golf courses and airfields. It grazes on grasses and pulls roots and rhizomes of marsh plants from the ground.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
A rare winter visitor to the north of the region, with most records from the Bahamas and Puerto Rico; also from Cuba, the Cayman Islands, Guadeloupe and Jamaica. Breeds on the tundra of North America, Greenland and Wrangel Island in eastern Siberia, and winters in the United States and northern Mexico.
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Records usually concern single birds, often among other waterbirds at ponds, on grassland or on golf courses. A bird that settles sometimes stays for weeks at the same site.
Conservation status
Not threatened globally; the North American populations have grown strongly in recent decades. In the Caribbean a rare winter visitor that does not breed in the region.
Scientific name
Anser caerulescens | (Linnaeus, 1758)
Linnaeus described the species in 1758 as Anas caerulescens; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Anser was introduced in 1760 by Brisson. Anser is the Latin word for 'goose'. caerulescens is Latin for 'bluish', from caeruleus 'dark blue', after the blue-grey dark morph. The specimen the first description was based on came from Hudson Bay.