Photo by Bryan Stevens • A  snow goose hanging out with a flock of Canada geese was found at a well-known Elizabethton pond on the last day of 2023.

The Elizabethton Bird Club’s 2024 calendars arrived just ahead of the new year, so I held a distribution on New Year’s Eve for people wanting to pick up a calendar at the parking lot at the Elizabethton campus of Northeast State Community College.

As I drove into the parking lot with my box of calendars I noticed a lone white goose sticking out like a proverbial sore thumb among several dozen Canada geese foraging in the grassy margins around the parking lot.

After a quick study, I determined the goose was a snow goose – the first that I have seen locally since December of 2022 when Erwin resident Joe McGuiness, who is also a fellow member of the Elizabethton Bird Club, alerted me to the presence of a snow goose at a farm pond along Massachusetts Avenue in Unicoi.

That snow goose, just like the one I saw at Northeast State, was hanging out with a flock of Canada geese.

Everyone arriving to pick up a calendar got to see the goose. In addition, the goose attracted some other onlookers. A driver of a tractor-trailer pulled into the parking lot, rolled down his window and leaned out of the cab of his truck with a pair of binoculars for a look at the snow goose. He had apparently seen the goose while driving past the pond.

Of the geese found in the region, the well-known Canada goose is nearly ubiquitous. Surprisingly, that’s not always been the case. In his book, “The Birds of Northeast Tennessee,” Rick Knight points out that the Canada geese now present throughout the year resulted from stocking programs conducted in the 1970s and 1980s. In earlier decades, the Canada goose was considered a rare winter visitor to the region. Seeing the Canada goose in every sort of habitat from golf courses to grassy margins along city walking trails, it’s hard to imagine a time when this goose wasn’t one of the region’s most common waterfowl.

The snow goose can still be considered an uncommon visitor to the region, but they do show up almost regularly every winter.

The world’s geese are not as numerous as ducks, but there are still about 20 species of geese worldwide, compared to about 120 species of ducks. While both ducks and geese are lumped together as waterfowl, most geese are more terrestrial than ducks. Birders are just as likely to spot geese in a pasture or on the greens of a golf course as they are on a lake or pond.

Photo by Bryan Stevens • A snow goose swims amid Canada geese at the pond at Fishery Park in Erwin, Tennessee.

The snow goose breeds in regions in the far north, including Alaska, Canada, Greenland and even the northeastern tip of Siberia. They may spend the winter as far south as Texas and Mexico, although some will migrate no farther than southwestern British Columbia in Canada.

The snow goose bucks the trends that show many species of waterfowl declining. Recent surveys show that the population of the snow goose exceeds five million birds, which is an increase of more than 300% since the mid-1970s. In fact, this goose is thriving to such a degree that the large population has begun to inflict damage on its breeding habitat in some tundra regions.

A smaller relative to the snow goose is the Ross’s goose, which for all practical purposes looks like a snow goose in miniature. The common name of this goose honors Bernard R. Ross, who was associated with the Hudson’s Bay Company in Canada’s Northwest Territories.

Here’s a quick history lesson. Hudson’s Bay Company is the oldest commercial corporation in North America. The company has been in continuous operation for more than 340 years, which ranks it as one of the oldest in the world. The company began as a fur-trading enterprise, thanks to an English royal charter in back in 1670 during the reign of King Charles II. These days, Hudson’s Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada and the United States.

In addition to his trade in furs, Ross collected specimens for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Ross is responsible for giving the goose that now bears his name one of its early common names – the Horned Wavy Goose of Hearne. I wonder why that name never caught on?
Ross repeatedly insisted that this small goose was a species distinct from the related and larger lesser snow goose and greater snow goose. His vouching for this small white goose eventually convinced other experts that this bird was indeed its own species.

Ross was born in Ireland in 1827. He died in Toronto, Ontario, in 1874. He was described by other prominent early naturalists as “enthusiastic” and “a careful observer” in the employ of Hudson’s Bay Company. When John Cassin gave the Ross’s Goose its first scientific name of Anser rossii in 1861, he paid tribute to the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Ross.

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The large pond adjacent to the Northeast State Community College’s Elizabethton campus – known by many birders as the “Great Lakes” pond – has been a magnet for some unusual birds. Some of the more unusual birds found at this pond have included canvasback, American avocet, semipalmated plover, great egret, greater white-fronted goose and red-necked grebe. It’s also a reliable location for birds such as great blue herons and killdeers.

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To share a sighting, ask a question or make a comment, email me at ahoodedwarbler@aol.com.