The Dead Creek Wildlife Management Area, located in northwestern Vermont, is an excellent birding area that is especially known for the flocks of Snow Geese that, in the 1980's, started using the area as a migration stopover location in the fall season. Large flocks consisting mainly of "Greater" Snow Geese, including "Blue" Geese forms, as well as a few individuals of the smaller Ross's Geese can be seen from designated roadside viewing areas. They stop here to rest and to feed, before continuing south to the Delaware and Chesapeake Bay areas. Some of these geese have been banded, and wear colored neck collars with alphanumeric codes on them that enable individual birds to be identified without recapture. On November 10, 2002, Becky Suomala and I spent several hours viewing these geese and recorded neck collar numbers on a number of birds (see the table below the pictures). As we watched, a family (human) stopped to look at the geese and accidentally released a red balloon which startled the geese and caused them to abruptly fly up all together, before settling back down to continue feeding and resting.

"GREATER" SNOW GOOSE