Snow Goose (dark morph, or blue goose) Landing in Golden Light

Here is another magical memory from last December’s Best of Bosque Workshop in New Mexico. Although the wind direction was wrong, some geese circled on the final approach, and the wind shifted in our favour as the light got sweet - a reward for our patience!

Snow Goose (dark morph, or blue goose) Landing in Golden Light (Chen Caerulescens, Oie des Neiges, SNGO) from my Better than Bosque workshop last Dec. Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, San Antonio, New Mexico, USA. Image Copyright ©Christopher Dodds. Sony Alpha 1 Mirrorless camera & Sony FE 600mm f/4 G Master OSS Lens with Sony FE 2X Teleconverter @1,200mm ISO 2,000, f/8 @ 1/5,000s Manual exposure. Full Frame image top to bottom - cropped left side to 4x5 aspect ratio.

Snow Goose (blue morph) Landing Head-on

The dark color of the blue morph Snow Goose is controlled by a single gene, with dark being partially dominant over white. If a pure dark goose mates with a white goose, the offspring will all be dark (possibly with white bellies). If two white geese mate, they have only white offspring. If two dark geese mate, they will have mostly dark offspring, but might have a few white ones too.

The oldest Snow Goose on record, a blue morph, was shot in Idaho in 2020. It was 30 years, 8 months old and was originally banded in Arizona in 1990.