General

Snow Goose: Large goose with two color morphs. White morph is all white with black wing tips. Blue morph has white head and neck, blue-gray upperparts, gray-brown breast and sides and white belly. Bill is pink with black lower mandible. Legs and feet are pink. Sexes are similar; male is slightly larger. Juveniles of white morph have mottled gray head and neck, ashy-brown back and scapulars with white edging; bill and legs are dusky. Blue morph lacks white on head and neck and have darker gray or blue feathering.

Range and Habitat

Snow Goose: Breeds in the Arctic regions of North America and eastern Siberia. In the west, winters on the Pacific coast from southern British Columbia to Baja California; also mid-Atlantic coast and the Gulf Coast from Mississippi to Texas. Breeds on tundra; wintering habitats include salt marshes and marshy coastal bays and also freshwater marshes and grain fields.

Breeding and Nesting

Snow Goose: Three to five white eggs are laid in a ground nest sparsely lined with down; nests in colonies on tundra. Incubation ranges from 23 to 25 days and is carried out by the female.

Foraging and Feeding

Snow Goose: Their diet consists of seeds, stems, leaves, rhizomes, stolons, grasses, sedges, rushes and other aquatic plants, grains, young leafy stems of various agricultural crops, stems of horsetails, a variety of berries, salt grass, wild millet and wild rice. They are intensive foragers. They prefer to feed in water-logged soil or shallow water.

Vocalization

Snow Goose: Emits a high-pitched, barking "bow-wow" or "howk-howk."

Similar Species

Snow Goose: Domesticated barnyard goose lacks black primaries and usually has orange bill. Ross's Goose is smaller with stubbier, entirely pink bill; juvenile is paler than juvenile Snow Goose.