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started writing this articleseveral times and each timeknew I wasn’t writing what I wanted to write. I had spenttoo much time reading everything in two, too-fat filefolders I had built on snowgeese over the years. I assembled 23 pages of noteslumping like material from

many sources – not transcribing theactual information, just where I couldfind it. I photocopied all the articlesthat have been in NEBRASKAlandabout how snow geese are destroyingtheir Arctic nesting grounds becausethere are too many of them, the firstone published 20 years ago. All thesame information has been published incountless other publications, both technical and popular. I finally realizedthere really isn’t anything new to writeabout the “lesser snow goose problem”unless something dramatic happens – amassive die-off due to a disease such asavian cholera that reduces the populationby half and solves the problem; or theU.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS)deciding to hire thousands of peopleevery year to step on snow goose eggs,with animal rights groups sacking theDepartment of the Interior building inWashington D.C. in protest. A crisispersisting for 30 years seems to be lessof a crisis.

What I really wanted to write is thatsnow geese are incredibly beautiful andmysterious creatures. It breaks my heartto see them so devalued, classified asvermin to be eradicated, and sporthunting should not be about killing as many as possible to save the environment. We all know why sporthunting was the tool chosen to attemptto bring the population back in balance– it was the most palatable solution.

I am not suggesting we should standidly by and let nature take its course;that we do not bear a responsibility inregulating the size of some wildlifepopulations. That was forced upon usbecause we have so intensely modifiedwhere these wild animals have alwayslived to the detriment of some, drivingthem to extinction or nearly so; in othercases benefiting a species by providingfor them in abundance, as we havesnow geese. We have provided food in our grain fields, corn and rice in particular, and we have provided

sanctuary in wildlife refuges. Snowgeese are adaptable because they soreadily modify their habits to capitalizeon changes in their environment. Inthat way they are much like us. Thereare too many pairs of snow geese ontraditional Arctic nesting grounds, theyare destroying a part of the naturalenvironment they, and many otherspecies, require and so the size of theirpopulation must be reduced. Should weapply the same logic to New York Cityor Los Angeles – too many breedingpairs of humans per square mile? This

sort of thinking, frankly, is too big andcomplex on too many levels to evencontemplate. There are no simpleanswers. �

What I can comprehend, albeitsketchily, are my own times with snowgeese. It mostly has been me pittedagainst the snow geese, but in a differentway than were I carrying a shotgun. Ithas been a photographer trying againand again to be smarter than snowgeese, to fool them just long enough tomake photographic portraits. In thecourse of all those attempts over allthose years, I came to see them as morethan masses of white specks in the skytoo smart to come down to massivedecoy spreads and electronic callerssimulating the incredible babble that

comes from thousands of real birds; oras corpses tossed in a pile to standbehind and have a photograph takenwith while holding your unplugged,semi-automatic shotgun. I know snow geese are not such reprehensiblecreatures that it is morally acceptableto cut away the breast meat from thosealready killed and grind their nakedbreast bones down into the loose soil ofa cornfield to use what is left of thecorpses to lure more of their kind whena hunter already has more birds than hecan eat or give away. Yes, I have killed

snow geese with a shotgun, and yes, Ienjoyed the hunts because I was huntingwith others who also admired snowgeese as more than targets, hunters whodid not gauge the day’s success on thebody count. And I enjoyed eating them,including the legs.�

I cannot really say when I saw myfirst snow goose, either passing sky-high during migration or dead in thehand. In Platte County, where I grewup, I have no memory of snow geese,although they surely passed overheadunnoticed. I do not recall any hunterthere ever shooting a snow goose, butlikely it happened now and then. Mypoint is that in those days, the 1950sand 1960s, snow geese in Nebraskawere essentially birds of the Missouri

A gregarious species, most people only see snow geese as swarms over wetlands or grain fields. Up close, they are marvelous creatures.

geese. I stayed in the pit even after acold front passed and the northern endof the lake froze over. I tried baiting,spreading ears of corn on the ice infront of my pit, hoping to lure a fewbirds within camera range. But whywould they come? Their bellies werefull of corn when they returned to thelake. They wanted water, and the openwater was at mid-lake.

Still, I could watch them through the500mm lens, and write more notes:November 18, 1975 – “New arrivalsgenerally dip for two or three drinks,ladling up water, and after are occupiedwith preening. They rise up on thewater to flutter and vigorously shaketheir tails. The splashing of the watersounds as if as many frisky childrenwere just liberated in a swimming pool.There are chases as one goose trespasseswithin the personal territory of another,especially if the transgressor is animmature drifting too close to an adult.

Some geese are so vigorous in theirsplashing that they completely submerge, only to pop up four or fivefeet from their starting point. Some doquite respectable somersaults, pivotingend over end at the water’s surface.”

The estimated number of snow geeseon the refuge grew to record high of172,000 birds. By November 28, afterthree days with high temperaturesnever rising above freezing, the number of snow geese on the areadwindled. I continued to make no photographs and write more notes:“Even though a scant 35,000 geeseremain, it is an impressive spectacle asnew birds tumble from the sky into thegrain fields just ahead of the alreadyfeeding geese. From this distance thefeeding birds lose individual integrity.The flock of slaty-blue and white islike a rush of water sweeping acrossthe field. An additional 100,000 birdscould hardly heighten the scene.”

That day I hastily constructed a cornstalk blind on the edge of unpickedcorn bordering picked corn, hunkereddown and watched the geese feed.Even though there was more corn inthe unpicked portion of the field, thebirds were reluctant to enter it.

“Several immature snows walkednervously along the rows. One spied adangling ear of corn inches higher thanit could reach with its neck fullystretched. Several times it fluttered upand grasped the ear with hopes of dislodging it or some of its kernels.One low-hanging ear was immediatelyseized by an immature snow goose. Forseveral minutes the prize belonged to italone. It raked the ear with its open billmore efficiently than I would haveimagined possible with a bill designedfor digging succulent roots from theearth. Within minutes the cob was halfbare and only half-a-dozen kernels hadfallen to the ground. These kernels and

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River Valley. That was probably notalways the case, as there are pre-1900hunting accounts of snow geese beingexceedingly plentiful on the Platte Riveras far west as North Platte. Probablyeven then, though, the Missouri RiverValley was their major migration corridor both spring and autumn.Relatively few snow geese were shotby Nebraska hunters during the firsthalf of the 1900s, even along theMissouri. All that changed beginning inthe 1960s, as refuges along snow goosemigration routes provided sanctuaries.By the 1970s, snow goose huntingalong the Missouri was good enoughthat private and commercial shootingsetups sprouted up like asparagusshoots in the spring. It was along theMissouri in the early-1970s that I cameto know snow geese.�

I first attempted to photograph snowgeese in 1975. I wanted photographsmore personal than the massive flocksrising up or landing that can be madefrom a car window. It was a humblingexperience. They are not easily had, inpart because they seem to do almosteverything in masses, so there is not

just one pair of eyes searching for danger behind every clump of grass,but thousands.

Long before autumn migrationreached Nebraska, I dug a small,shallow pit on the west bank of theneck-shaped, manmade lake on thePlattsmouth Wildlife Management Area (WMA) just below the mouth of the Platte River. The refuge was subsequently renamed Schilling WMAin memory of Randy Schilling, a gamecommission biologist who later managedthe refuge and died in an airplane crashwhile surveying deer. On the advice ofthe refuge manager, I dug my pit nearthe north end and built a two-foot-highdome of arched willows covered withchicken wire, burlap, little bluestemand fireweed. I first sat in the blind forabout eight hours on November 17.The bird’s normal daily pattern was tomove off the lake (which was at thecenter of the area where hunting wasnot allowed) at first light and move intograin fields on or off the refuge to feed.By mid-morning they began returningto the lake to loaf away the middaybefore moving out late in the afternoonto feed again.

On my first day in the blind, thegeese gathered in mid-lake. I made nophotographs, but was impressed. Therefuge manager estimated there wereabout 162,000 snow geese on therefuge, and if he was right it was arecord number. I had never seen somany waterfowl in one place. I wasyoung and my field notes gushed andstrained trying to describe the spectacle:“A thousand geese are absorbed intothe resting birds without noticeablyswelling it. The exhilaration of thesight distorts one’s judgment.” Myhastily scrawled field notes were lacedwith words like “awestruck” and“incomprehensible.” I wrote: “There isa swelling roar of thousands of wingsfrom the north, a flock rising up fromthe cornfields. The geese barely clearedthe dike and fill the northern sky, theirshadows running down the dike anddisappearing at the water’s edge, likelemmings marching to the sea.” Nevermind that I had never seen lemmingsmarching to the sea – I had fallenunder the snow goose spell.

I sat in that pit blind for five dayswithout exposing one frame of film. Iwas too stubborn to move to the snow

During their time in Nebraska, snow geese gather on wetlands overnight, not moving to grain fields to feed until first light.

The Lesser Snow Goose is probably the most abundant of all the geese of this continent.– The Ducks, Geese and Swans of North America by Francis H. Kortright, 1941

climbed onto the three-foot ice shelf infront of my blind, only a broom handleaway, to finish preening their bellyfeathers. Shot film as fast as I couldreload, and 15 minutes after the birdscame, they lifted off in a massive eruption.” �

Since those days I have recorded, ina simple and unscientific way, my timeswith snow geese, scrawled pencil notesin my field diary from here and there.The spring after my days with thegeese at Schilling, my affairs withsnow geese moved to the RainwaterBasin of south-central Nebraska. Mostsprings I spent some days on wetlandsthere, and some springs many days. Icontinued to track the course of themid-continent snow goose population,stuffing ever more reports and surveysinto my snow goose file folders.

In 1974, the USFWS estimated only15,000 snows were in the basins at thepeak of spring migration. The snowgeese liked what they found – state andfederal wetlands managed for migratingwaterfowl, including pumping of wateras needed in the spring, surrounded bygrain fields as far as the eye could see.The increasing use of the basins by

snow geese during spring migration inthe 1970s was incremental, so gradualas to nearly escape attention, but in acrude way my sporadic and piecemealnotes traced it.

In the spring of 1976 I spent most ofmy time photographing on wetlands inClay County, on Harvard MarshWaterfowl Production Area (WPA) inparticular. Almost all of my notes mentioning geese are of Canada andwhite-fronted geese. By 1980, my notessuggest a preponderance of dark geese,but snow geese were on Massie WPAin significant numbers. During theearly-1980s, snows were largelyrestricted to the eastern half of theRainwater Basin, the western half havingalmost entirely Canadas or whitefronts.My field notes from Massie WPA inearly-March 1981 paint an uncertaintyin my estimation of the abundance ofdifferent species of geese – from“Impressive numbers of snow and bluegeese” to “My impression thus far isthat whitefronts are the most abundantof geese, a tossup between Canada andsnow geese.” And I noted that white-phase snow geese far outnumberedblue-phase snow geese. Because of thelocation of their Arctic breeding

grounds, the blue-phase snow goosehad traditionally migrated in greaternumbers through the MississippiFlyway. I shot aerial photographs ofsome of the larger wetlands on March6, starting with Harvard Marsh WPAjust before sunrise. Later that morning I wrote: “Large number of snow geeseon both Harvard and Massie. Roughlyestimate that 25-40 percent is snowgeese.” �

In March 1981 I had another milestone experience with waterfowl,snow geese among them. I spent thelate afternoon and early evening onMassie WPA in Clay County building apole blind. I hoped to photographducks and geese, frame-filling portraitsas at Schilling WMA in 1975. It wasdark by 6:20 p.m. when I finished covering the blind with three-cornerrush and cattail, but I stayed for over anhour, sitting in a 10-foot johnboat inthe dark in the middle of the marsh. Itwas as close as I have come to having amystical experience, as if I had beenaccepted into the natural world, but myrational mind told me it was onlybecause it was too dark for the birds tosee me. Excerpts from my field notes:

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the bobbing cob drew a crowd of fiveother immature geese that challengedthe first goose for the corn. Squabbleserupted and feathers were pecked. Amature blue approached, extended itsneck and pulled at the back feathers ofthe immature that had temporarilymanaged to dominate the ear of corn.The young goose relinquished its claimwithout challenge and the adult bird

feasted without interruption.”I stubbornly sat in my pit blind for two

days in early-December and neither daywere geese close enough for photos. Atthe end of the afternoon of the secondday, while the geese were in the fieldsfeeding, I dug a new pit at mid-lakeand moved the dome cover. The nextday, the snow geese let me have myway with them, but ever so briefly.

December 4, 1975 – “Arrived 8:30a.m. Mid-lake open but with slush ice.Clear with light south breeze, expectedto reach low 50s. 1:45 p.m. – 10-15,000 geese returned to lake, put in100 yards north of me. Within fiveminutes the water in front of my blindwas filled with geese. Behaviorists bedamned! These geese are ‘happy’ toreturn to the water now their bellies arefull of corn. They side-slipped andcareened more than seemed necessaryto fall from the sky to the water. Eachbird followed nearly the same ritualonce on the water. First dipping theirgenerous necks to drink, raising theirheads slowly to allow the water passage to the gullet. The skin and short feathers below their mandiblesthrobbed as the water passed. Theydunked their heads repeatedly and then vigorously shook the water fromtheir feathers. Some birds flipped completely over, their head and neckunderwater with only plump bellies and kicking feet above the water line.All this cavorting was followed by long preening sessions. Not a featherescaped their attention. Some birds, itseemed to be predominantly adults,

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There have always been intermediate plumages between white-phase and blue-phase snow geese, as seen in this “blue goose” witha white breast, but they have become increasingly common as the population swelled and breeding colonies became less distinct.

Snow geese may pair for life or until one of them dies, so probable pairs are seen together during autumn and spring migration.

At one time the blue-phase snow goose, above, and the white-phase, below, werebelieved to be separate species. They are, however, only color phases of the same bird.

similar but smaller species of goose,has increased as well. At best,liberalized hunting has only slowed theincrease in the size of the mid-continentsnow goose population.�

The last time I was close to snowgeese was in 1995 on a RainwaterBasin marsh. Again I watched themthrough a small glass rectangle on the back of a camera; a single birdsometimes filling the viewfinder. Theywere not a swarm, not a flock, certainlynot a mid-continent population. Theywere individuals – preening, drinkingrising up in the water to shake cornfield

dust from their pinions. Some seemedto be paired for the nesting season. Andjust as happened in 1975 along theMissouri River, several snow geesecrawled onto an ice ledge so close tomy blind that I could not focus on them,preened, and then thrust their grinningbills into feathers between their foldedwings, their eyelids blinking and thenclosing. They were not “sky carp.”�

I understand the necessity of reducing the size of the NorthAmerican snow goose population, thattheir overabundance is not onlydestroying their nesting habitat in the

Arctic, but those of numerous otherspecies. I have no argument with gamemanagement officials pulling out stopsto try and accomplish that as humanelyas possible, in ways acceptable to asmany people as possible. All I wantedto write, to turn an old cliché on itshead, is that it would a shame if we cannot see a snow goose for its flock.While the nearly incomprehensiblylarge masses of snow geese are whatmost of us see most of the time, seeingsnow geese only as a mass of wingedorganisms steals away knowing themas individuals. Snow geese deservegreater admiration than that. ■

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“Once dark, there was an uninterrupted movement of ducks andgeese returning to the marsh. Canadageese landing only 15 yards from me.Pintails and baldpate whistling overhead,searching for their place in the marshfor the night. And the sound, ah thesound, beyond description, of so manyducks and geese so close, overhead andsorting out their affairs in the darkness.The scene is beyond what can beexpressed in our inadequate language.To be in a marsh. The rich, stagnantfragrance of the marsh. The gray sky.Drizzle on the neck. Squads of snowgeese and courtship flights of pintails.The scene cries out for description yetdefies it. A glimpse back to our origins,a closeness to life other than our own,as if we belong somewhere, finallybelong somewhere. A scraping away ofthe veneer, a fleeting sight of the core.

“Snow geese hover overhead, forcedearthward by heavy gray clouds,alive with talk. Ghosts of the marsh,portending the passing of their kind inthis place? Their passing indistinctagainst the soft rain. Could they tell ofdays when wings filled the skies overmarshes now gone? Days when onlywild sounds could be heard?

“7:10 p.m. – Ducks and geese continue to return to the marsh, mud-laden feet from feeding in fields hangingheavily under them rather than stringinggracefully behind. All around me aresmall splashes of water as mud fallsfrom their feet.”�

The second week of November 1985,I was returning to Lincoln fromCrawford. On the night of November 7,a cold front had pushed south out ofCanada, leaving 10 to 12 inches ofsnow on Nebraska’s northern border.Ahead of it had been what in oldentimes was called the Grand Passage – aday or two when waterfowl push southen masse. Many ducks and geese wentonly as far south as necessary to findopen water, and that was most ofNebraska. Snow geese were reportedstatewide in places where it was rare tosee flocks even pass over. That waswhat I saw driving diagonally acrossthe state – snow geese feeding in fieldswhere I had never seen them before.Former Nebraska Game and ParksCommission waterfowl biologist JoeGabig estimated, based on reports from

across the state, there were about542,000 snow geese in Nebraska in thedays after the storm, in addition to anestimated 300,000 at DeSoto NationalWildlife Refuge on the Missouri River.The estimated fall flight of mid-continentsnow geese at that time was three million. Some biologists speculated thesnow geese had been pushed westwardfrom their usual migration corridor bythe storm.

Snow geese had discovered theRainwater Basin prior to 1985, but thataberrant fall migration may have accelerated their use of central Nebraska,particularly Rainwater Basin wetlands,and contributed to a westward shift oftheir spring migration route. Whateverthe reason, there were dramaticchanges in the mid-continent snowgoose population during the 1980s. Inthe spring it became more likely to seesnow geese migrating from east to westacross southeastern Nebraska, from theMissouri River to the Rainwater basinsin south-central Nebraska, than norththrough the Missouri River Valley. Fallsnow goose hunting along the MissouriRiver began to dwindle.�

In the 1980s a red flag was raisedabout the burgeoning mid-continentsnow goose population. A USFWS survey in the late-1960s estimated aNorth American wintering populationof about 1.2 million “snow geese.” By1982, the population was estimated at1.7 million. A report issued in 1982suggested the mid-continent snowgoose population was exceeding thecarrying capacity of some breedingcolonies and causing permanent damageto tundra vegetation. Snow geese werealso pioneering inland and establishingnesting colonies where they had neverbeen known to nest before. The wintercount crossed the two million mark in 1991, and the 1995 estimate was 2.7 million. More and more snow geesethat had traditionally migrated throughthe Mississippi Flyway began using theCentral Flyway.

The Central Flyway ManagementPlan for Mid-continent Snow Geese set a target of reducing the breedingpopulation to between 800,000 and 1.2 million birds. Biologists decidedthe most socially acceptable tool to do so was to increase the legal kill by hunters. So beginning in 1986,

snow goose hunting opportunities havebeen incrementally liberalized – longer seasons and shooting later in the spring,unplugged shotguns, electronic callersand unlimited daily and possession limits.

Waterfowl biologists believe that in2001, the bulk of the mid-continentsnow goose population, an estimatedseven million snow geese, was inNebraska’s Rainwater Basin at onetime. Today the mid-continent snowgoose population is estimated to bebetween three and five million birdsand growing at about six percent ayear. The number of Ross’s geese, a

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Blue-phased snow geese use to be more common in the Mississippi Flyway. Today they are equally common in the Central Flyway.