Greater White-fronted Goose (click to see the larger version)

March is the month for waterfowl and one of the more uncommon waterfowl species at Montrose is Greater White-fronted Goose. We usually see them in early March or even late February if the weather is right. Sometimes large movements involving hundreds of birds occur, but a few dozen is more typical. For some reason, we saw only one White-fronted at Montrose in spring 2023, a flyover immature on March 26. This is a bit late but also a helpful reminder that birds don’t always behave like we expect them to. One interesting tidbit about White-fronted Geese is that hunters refer to them as specklebellies, an allusion to the prominent dark spotting and barring on the underparts of the adults.