Returning from my campus walk this morning, I thought I heard the distant call of snow geese (despite my headphones). Sure enough, a large flock wavered overhead in the cold, blue December sky.
Farther west, a much larger flock, linear in configuration and at least a mile long, passed in front of the half moon. Over the next ten minutes, six more flocks arrived from the northwest, taking advantage of strong winds behind this week's storm system.
The snows were all heading southeast, following the Missouri River toward the Mississippi. After breeding on the Arctic tundra, they gradually move southward as lakes and wetlands begin to freeze. While they once wintered exclusively in Gulf Coastal marshes of Louisiana and East Texas, many are now stopping along the broad floodplain of the Lower Mississippi where they feast on waste grain across the vast crop fields. Come February, they'll move northward through the Heartland, traveling in smaller flocks and lingering at favored rest stops for days or even weeks at a time.
