Snow Geese almost certainly fly over Sitka each year. According to the Birds of North America entry on the Snow Goose, the birds flying over the Sitka area are most likely some of the 80,000+ Snow Geese that breed on Wrangel Island. Despite the strong probability that these birds fly over Sitka in some numbers each year, they have rarely been reported. It is clear that they very rarely spend much, if any, time on the ground along the Sitka road system, though it is possible they may more often spend some down time at other locations in the greater Sitka area. They are probably under reported in flights due to poor conditions for observation of flocks that are flying high overhead and a failure to look carefully because of a default assumption that flocks of flying geese are the more common Canada Goose.

Observation Notes:
11 October 2007: 75 in flight over downtown Sitka.
22 October 2006: 100+ in flight over water near Kasiana Islands.

My Comments:
As of October 2007, I have only seen Snow Geese twice, both in migration flights high overhead. The first time I saw a flock was on a birding outing with Marge Ward and visiting birder Jeff Sauer (from Juneau). There were heavy clouds in late October 2006 and the light was poor. The geese were out over the water some distance away, but Jeff thought they looked pale and might be Snow Geese. I took pictures of the flock and was able to confirm that it was a flock of Snow Geese. Without Jeff’s careful observation, I doubt I would have thought they were anything other than Canada Geese, a species with which I am much more familiar. Fast forward almost a year, and in mid October 2007, I heard a flock of geese flying over while I was at Swan Lake. I took some photos as I habitually do, but just figured they were regular geese (by which I mean Canada Geese). Upon looking at my photos a couple of days later, I realized that they were Snow Geese. One of these days I might learn to overcome my assumption that all geese in high flying flocks are Canada Geese. Even better, I might learn to recognize the different flight calls.

J. Dan Webster
Scarce migrant. In 1940 (Webster, 1941) I saw flocks at Sitka 10 to 31 May. Johnstone saw one for two weeks in mid-November 1975 (Kessel and Gibson MS). Ward and Tedin saw 12 on 22 November 2001 (Tobish 2002).