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.

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

A spectacular movement of Greater White-fronted Geese occurred on March 5. Greater White-fronted Geese are rare but regular early spring migrants at Montrose. We usually see a few most years, but this flight was like nothing I’ve experienced before. I estimated 1200 passed over between 6:45 and 7:30 a.m. Most were in groups of 50-200 birds and flying north over Lake Michigan. When they reached Montrose they turned west and continued in that direction over Chicago. The majority of flocks were between 500 and 1500 feet, so even though they flew over me most were too high to photograph.

eBird Checklist
March 5, 2020