Many Blackfoot residents have noticed the unusually high numbers of Snow Geese (along with swans and ducks) in the watershed this year, and that they have been staying around longer than in other years. We’ve thought it likely that they were piling up here where there has been at least a little open water and fields, waiting for things to thaw to the north. Now we are seeing big flocks leaving the watershed, heading north over the Bob Marshall. And a biologist in California has some really cool transmitter data showing not only that a lot of the geese that winter in California have been passing through here, but that some of them seem to scout out conditions in the north while they wait! Chris Nicolai of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service put radio transmitters on 39 geese in the Central Valley and has been following them via satellites as they’ve migrated north.
The map above shows that most of them have come through Montana and spent weeks in the Great Falls area before moving to Canada recently. And at least one goose made two trips up to Alberta and back to Benton Lakes in Montana this spring! We don’t know if these birds have some way of communicating with the rest that conditions are not right to continue migration or if these are just overeager individuals that can’t help checking things out. But it does seem that most of the flocks have some way of knowing when to move. And the warmer, drier weather that has accelerated our snowmelt and started to open up the lakes has put them back on course. The map below shows that some of these geese came right through the Blackfoot on their way north:
You can track these Snow Geese directly by going to https://www.movebank.org/node/36241 and searching for Wintering California Geese. Or you may be able to see a big flock overhead if you are out and about in the Blackfoot today!