Here a goose, there a goose,

everywhere a goose.

We have been visiting the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge for several years, but I was surprised by the number of geese we saw feeding on the refuge on this visit.  We may have seen more geese in previous years, but they have usually been in the pond, not feeding on the refuge.  This time, just the opposite was true. I suspect that’s because the farmers’ fields have been rototilled in preparation for Spring planting, and the geese are forced to feed on refuge grasses before heading north.

We were greeted by flocks of Snow Geese

and Greater White-Fronted Geese

at the beginning of the auto tour, and they were far from alone as geese could be found throughout the refuge.

I generally dislike photos where parts of the main subject are cut off, but with so many geese it was hard to find a lone goose

or a pair close enough together to capture in a single shot.

If we lived in the Willows area we would probably take the geese for granted, but seeing so many Snow and Greater White-Fronted geese was quite a treat for us considering that they are a rare sighting around Puget Sound unless you are willing to drive north to Everett.