Snow Geese in Quebec

I'd been spending a few days in Montreal and was thinking about new birds that I might be able to see. As I already had snow buntings, snowy egrets, snowy owls, I figured the next one to see should be a snow goose (well, that and eBird showed some recent sightings outside of the city). And by recent sightings, I mean flocks of between two and ten thousand up and down the St. Lawrence River. That was all I needed to decide that it was time to find some snow geese. 

Our primary objective: snow geese.

I spent several days wondering if the snow geese would still be in the area by the time I got out to see them. The last posted sighting on ebird was March 25 and, with each day becoming somewhat warmer, I couldn't help but worry that the geese might decide it was time to head further north.

My boys didn't have school (Easter weekend?) so we took a morning trip to the Parc des Prairies in Laval where we saw all regular cityscape birds: ring billed gulls, cardinals, chickadees, downy woodpeckers, dark eyed juncos, and in the mix, a house finch. The house finch was significant only because it was the first one I have seen all year, which makes it bird #83 on my list.  

We had a nice lunch with a colleague in downtown Montreal and decided that it was a good time to look for the snow goose. Our destination was Baie Hungry (or Hungry Bay for those who prefer Anglais) just past Salaberry de Vallyfield, Quebec. It was about an hour's drive out there and, when we saw almost no birds the entire trip, you can't help but wonder if the birds are going to be there or not. Was this going to be the proverbial wild goose chase? It started to look that way when we drove out to Hungry Bay and not a single bird was found. 

My guess was that the geese were in fields feeding and just hadn't returned to the river yet. So we headed off to the west and almost immediately saw geese in the skies. I drove in the direction they were flying and about three or four miles down the road, we saw this:

There is snow way about it, those are snow geese.

Snow geese! Pulling off the side the road, we all got a good look I had found bird #84 and completed my "snow" bird quadfecta! We continued down the road and saw more fields with snow geese, you know a few hundred here, a couple hundred more there. Yes, there are still snow geese here and lots of them. Our final stop was a field of snow geese closer to the road so we could get an even better look (and photo too!).

Snow geese in Quebec.