[Aaronk]

Just curious if anyone has can remember seeing any snow geese in extreme south eastern PA. I've seen them just across the river in NJ, just south in DE, and just north and east, but never in my area. I know the John Heinz refuge is a hotspot for migrating Canadas and all types of ducks, but don't think Iv'e ever seen a single snow goose.

Just curious!

 

[dmccoy1]

Usually run right past us here. Sometimes in extreme southern CC, they will hang out for a while. But in all the 25 years I been hunting the same area, I can remember 2 years when we had a flock hang out for more than a week, but it wasn't much longer than that.

 

[Webfoot96]

Doesn't mean they won't start though. Things are changing. The traditional wintering areas, staging areas and migration stop overs are not necessarily the same as they were 20 or even 10 years ago. Snows are showing up in areas and numbers that are making some folks go, "What the...?" The flock continues to grow and it only stands to reason that they are going to spread out more if for no other reason than to find the biomass that supports their revenous feeding habits. In watching a couple areas in particular, it seems that once a few thousand are "programmed" on an area, it's only a matter of time until they can be found there with some degree of consistancy. The other side of the coin is that some areas are seeing less Snows around than in the past and some knowledgeable folks say it is because of different crop farming methods and hunting pressure.

Chuck

 

[Aaronk]

Very interesting webfoot, and it makes a lot of sense. I'd say that my area is a bit of an uncharted end territory for snows, and if they start figuring out that there's some half decent habitat in areas that they won't encounter much hunting pressure, I could see the southeastern Philadelphia suburbs becoming a hot spot. It seems to have attracted fairly large numbers of Canada's who are more and more frequently stopping for a layover, getting comfortable and then skipping their northerly flight all together. They're just multiplying down here! It would be interesting to see if their white cousins picked a similar behavior

 

[Pigger]

Saw 2 flocks of snows, about a dozen each, come flying into Middle Creek yesterday.