Snow Geese at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware
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Among the great many photo shoots I have completed over the past three decades, two in particular stand out to me as my favorites. One took place back in the 90’s, and I had a very small amount of time to complete that assignment. The other was more recent, only fifteen months ago, and I spent 3-1/2 hours on that shoot. I’ll start here with the more recent one.
Snow Geese breed north of the timberline in Canada, Greenland, Alaska, and parts of Siberia from early May to mid-August. They spend their winters in various places in the U.S. ranging from Washington State, Texas, and the Delmarva peninsula, and can even be found as far south as Mexico. The snow geese found in the Mid-Atlantic region typically begin to arrive from northern Hudson Bay, Canada as early as late October and stay until early spring.
These geese will sometimes assemble in flocks numbering several hundred thousand, but often are seen in flocks of a few dozen or less. They will forage together on farm fields, and in wetlands, digging up roots from fields and marshes using serrations along the edges of their bill. In this manner of feeding they pull vegetation up by the roots and this typically damages ecologically fragile habitats such as salt marshes.
Their numbers have grown vastly in the past several decades, primarily due to their adaptation to feeding in agricultural fields. As well as being found in wetlands and plowed fields, they can be found in lakes and ponds where they roost along shorelines, and they will often raft in open water.
It was on a day in late December 2017 when I set out to photograph them, and ultimately found them rafting in the ocean. My initial plan was to try to spot them at Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge near Smyrna, DE, where I had seen them in previous trips over the years. But a large flock was spotted flying south along the shoreline, and toward Rehoboth Beach, just past noon on that day. So I set out for Gordon’s Pond, just north of Rehoboth, and when I arrived there I saw the flock continuing to fly south past the pond, descending to the dunes and the ocean.
The flock was on its descent to an area on the water about 100 yards offshore. Once I arrived on the beach, at the north end of Rehoboth, I saw just how huge this flock really was, which I could not tell when I first glimpsed them by Gordon’s Pond. I ended up greeting a waterfowl expert, who had also come out to see them, and he estimated this flock to be comprised of about 75,000 geese.
Shortly after I began observing and photographing them the flock split as they rafted, with about 2/3 of them ultimately moving slowly but steadily south past Rehoboth. I stayed with the smaller flock which still held about 25,000 geese, and continued to observe and photograph them for the next 3-1/2 hours.
This waterfowl expert indicated that the geese would likely stay on the water until about 4:30pm, when they would head back inland to roost for the night, as well as to feed. In response to my inquiry about why the geese would choose to spend the afternoon on cold water, he pointed out to me that the air temperature was in the upper 50’s and the water temp was about the same. The geese, he said, “were there to warm up”. After all, they do come south from the arctic and a near-60-degree day is quite balmy for them, even while on the water.
This day was probably the single most enjoyable day of wildlife photography that I have ever had. It wasn't simply because of the photos or the subject matter. It was just really nice being out there for 3-1/2 hours enjoying the sights and sounds of this enormous flock of geese, mixed in with the sounds of the surf. And the best part of the day was watching and photographing a number of geese choosing to spend some time on the beach. They would “body surf” in on a breaker and then lift off to fly the remaining few yards to the sand.
And then, as if on cue, they began to take off in flocks of thousands to move inland right at 4:30pm.