T H E NAT U R A L I S T
Snow Days
North Carolina’s greatest wildlife spectacle Story and Photographs by Todd Pusser
They appear like clockwork each November, arriving by the tens of thousands from their breeding grounds in the far north of Alaska and Canada, settling in for the winter in scattered locations across northeastern North Carolina, many in federal wildlife refuges created, in large part, for them and their kin. Possessing stark white feathers, weights of more than 5 pounds, and wings that stretch over 28 inches from tip to tip,
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snow geese are among our state’s most spectacular waterfowl. Aesthetics aside, what makes snow geese so remarkable is their tendency to form enormous flocks on their wintering grounds.
Containing as many as 40,000 individual birds, these cacophonous flocks provide the state’s greatest wildlife spectacle and can be seen in many of our coastal wildlife refuges such as MacKay Island, Pea Island and Lake Mattamuskeet. However, the largest flocks tend to aggregate in the vast fields and lakes of Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in rural Tyrell County, which is exactly where I found myself one winter’s day. I had timed my arrival for late afternoon, just as the sun was starting to dip in the bright blue western sky. Experience had taught me that the geese spend much of the day roosting in the shallow waters The Art & Soul of the Sandhills
