I saw at least two Snow Geese grazing with a few hundred Canadas at Creamer’s Field this morning. Seeing those birds made me remember this image, which I made a couple of years back in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Snow Geese are not terribly common in the Fairbanks area. A few turn up each year during migration, but they are never abundant. This is quite unlike the North Slope of Alaska where huge numbers of the birds nest each summer. In fact, their populations are booming, to the point where some areas of tundra are being grazed almost to bare ground. During the autumn, millions of Snow Geese congregate on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge where they stage for their migration to the lower 48.
About the image: As I noted, I made this image in 2007 during a photo trip I was leading to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in June. This was the only flock of Snow Geese we saw during the trip. They crossed in front of the mountains as a wall of Gray clouds descended. I made this image with a 500mm lens and 1.4x teleconverter, and then cropped it to panoramic. I like the wave-like form of the line of birds.
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