snow geese - kingston/ottawa area

[Dan]

Hi all-

Over the years, I have read and heard of large flocks of snow geese passing through Eastern Ontario.  I'm wondering if anyone has any info about best places or times to seek these flocks out.

I will be in Kingston for others reasons this weekend and early next week.  Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Dan

[Tyler]

Kingston and Ottawa are unfortunately too far west to enjoy much of the Greater Snow goose migration.

To see the big flock in Ontario one needs to travel to east of Cornwall. every spring there are small flocks that do show up just east of brockville and just se of ottawa. However the greater Snow goose migration for the most part stays south of Ontario.  10,000s of Snows do come through eastern Ontario ( out of over a million snow geese).

I have family nw of Montreal so I always time at least one visit for this spectacle. Usually I do not see the first snows till the Morrisburg-Long Sault area. Then the numbers build up to the anywhere between 5 and 20,000 snow geese foraging in the fields just north of Lancaster Ontario(right at the Quebec border).

To real see the spectacle one has to travel 90 mins east of Montreal on the south shore of Lac Saint-Pierre, I was there the first week of April last year and had 57,000 Snow Geese

Here is a link for this area http://www.stlawrenceriver.ca/slr-geese.html

[JTF]

Would this area be any good for finding or seeing snowgeese?

http://www.uppercanadabirdsanctuary.com/locatbrd.htm

[Tyler]

The upper Canada Bird sanctuary is about as far west as flocks of Greater snow geese can be usually seen. But if you drive that far to get there, then make sure you bought an extra large coffee and not a large. It will help you drive the extra 30-45  minutes east to where ALOT more snow geese can be seen (lancaster-alexandra area) east and ne of cornwall

The difference of between the two locations can be 0-100 snows at upper canada to 1000s in the fields and St Lawrence river around lancaster. Also there are 10s of thousands of Canada gees in the area. Rarities seen in this flyway previously include a Pink footed goose just NE of Ottawa 2004 and the only confirmed wild Barnacle goose for Ontario (it was shot north of lancaster near Hawkesbury ON in 2005 and was banded in Scotland)

The upper Canada bird sanctuary was set up for migratory Canada geese (i.e James, hudson bay and Nunavut geese) and thus you see mostly Canada's there. Also there are alot of panhandling deer in the area.

[JTF]

Excellent information, very helpful. I appreciate you taking the time to post back.

[Dan]

Just wanted to say thanks for the responses to my original post - lots of great info.

I didn't see any snow geese during my time near Kingston, but did manage to find small groups at Long Point in mid-week (last week) and on the weekend near Pinery Provincial park along with thousands of tundra swans.

The thousands of snow geese will likely have to wait until another year.

Dan

[Tyler]

A friend of mine just got back from seeing the Greater Snow Geese  east of montreal. He had approximately 200,000( 18-20% of the flyway's Snow Geese).

I am showing up there next saturday and hope for at least similiar totals since there are thousands still in new york state.