Taken at the Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary
Green Bay, WI

Canon 60D
Tamron SP70-300mm F4-5.6 Di VC USD

I spent some time at the sanctuary today. The temperatures have been very mild and we haven’t had much of a winter. I was really looking forward to some snow this year. The sanctuary can be a great place to get close up shots of songbirds such as cardinals, and blue jays in the snow. Without the snow the birds don’t need to huddle around the feeders because they can find their food anywhere. One other thing I was looking forward to was the pond being frozen and the ducks congregated in the corner where they keep the water open so they can swim. In the spring there can be several different kinds of ducks there including wood ducks, redheads, pintails, scaups, widgeons, hooded mergansers, common goldeneyes, and the list goes on. Many of these ducks are not around the sanctuary and waterfowl photography might be a bust there this year.

Today was a different story though. I was lucky enough to see a Blue Phase Snow Goose or as some people call them, a Blue Goose. I sat for a while just scanning over the pond to see if there was any other new comers to the pond but there were none. After about a half an hour this guy started making all kinds of racket and started shaking his head around and that usually means it is time to fly, and fly he did, right passed me. He was also kind enough to fly low enough so I could get the trees and marsh grass in the background. It still amazes me that I was 5 minutes outside of downtown Green Bay. What a great place.

Here is some information on the Snow Goose from Wikipedia.

The Snow Goose has two color plumage morphs, white (snow) or gray/blue (blue), thus the common description as “snows” and “blues.” White-morph birds are white except for black wing tips, but blue-morph geese have bluish-grey plumage replacing the white except on the head, neck and tail tip. The immature blue phase is drab or slate-gray with little to no white on the head, neck, or belly. Both snow and blue phases have rose-red feet and legs, and pink bills with black tomia (“cutting edges”), giving them a black “grin patch.” The colors are not as bright on the feet, legs, and bill of immature birds. The head can be stained rusty-brown from minerals in the soil where they feed. They are very vocal and can often be heard from more than a mile away.