The Snow Geese Have Arrived!

I'd felt sad that I hadn't seen many Snow Geese this year, and photographed none. But then, beginning in December, they began passing through the area in great numbers, honking loudly and resting in corn fields:

I stopped along the road to photograph these birds and couldn't tell if the darker colored birds were the blue color phase (blue morph) Snow Geese or Canada Geese:

They milled around, flying up and then landing again:

The darker geese in the foreground were Canada Geese - you can see the white mark on the side of their heads:

But it was not to be that simple. The dark goose in the lower left with the white head is, I think, an adult blue morph. The lighter, bluish gray geese are probably the immature white morph. And just to complicate matters, you will also see Canada Geese with their distinctive chin strap marking, mixed in here and there:

And the honking was deafening:

And then, for no reason apparent to me, great numbers of them took to the air:

They are a magnificent sight, and you can see why they thrill me every year: