Snow geese perplexing; Canada goose numbers strong

Wildlife artist Richard Clifton watches the comings and goings of waterfowl carefully. His studio is on his farm along the edge of Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge. Like many of us, he's noticed that snow geese are late arriving this year.

"They've just started showing up in the last few days," he said. "With this weekend's full moon and a cold front - if one comes, they might pick up the pace in the next few weeks. There could be 20,000 here by then."

Clifton said it wasn't many years ago when 60,000 to 80,000 snow geese would have already arrived in Delaware by Oct. 1. "The opening day of the season used to be Oct. 15, but we pushed to have it opened earlier because they were here. Not now. It has to be climate change. People don't want to hear about it, but there's no denying it. All the cold weather has shifted to later in the season, and that affects migration."

Annie Larsen, a wildlife biologist at Prime Hook refuge, agreed that snow goose patterns have changed. "It used to be that by the third week of September and early October we'd have 100,000 snow geese on the refuge. Now those big numbers don't get here until December or January. Right now we only have about 2,000."

Justyn Foth flies aerial waterfowl surveys, with Jeff Chorman at the helm, once or twice a month starting in October and ending in March. "There's definitely not very many snow geese around," he said. In late October, he counted a total of 1,350 snow geese in the state's core waterfowl habitat areas between Broadkill Beach on the south and Woodland Beach to the north.

"My totals for all waterfowl, excluding snow geese, have been going up by 10,000 birds with each survey, so I'm hoping that trend holds," said Foth. He planned to fly Thursday this week to get the latest numbers. "I don't think snow goose production was bad in Canada this year, but it's not been real cold. I think the birds are having a hard time figuring out whether they should stay up north so they will get a better breeding site in the spring or go south for a milder winter."

While the snow geese numbers are actually down overall in North America by about 18 percent over the past few years, federal surveys still show their overall numbers as strong and breeding production good.

Canada goose numbers strong

While changing patterns within the snow goose population have people scratching their heads, there is good news with Canada geese and ducks. "The Canada goose and duck totals have been stronger this year in every survey we've taken," said Foth. In October 2016, Canada geese in the state's core waterfowl zones numbered 3,980. In the same survey this year, those numbers had almost doubled, to 7,420. In the entire Atlantic Flyway, federal surveys estimate a total of 933,000 Canadas.

Larsen said Canada geese are currently the most abundant waterfowl species on Prime Hook refuge. "We have about 5,000 resident geese and the migrants started coming in a couple of weeks ago. I'd say we have 20,000 Canadas total on the refuge at the moment."

With more than 10,000 acres of marshes and adjoining fields, Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1963 as a resting and feeding area for migratory waterfowl. Larsen said in addition to Canadas, green-wing teal and black ducks are the most numerous species on the refuge.

"Green-wings are everywhere. Right now I'd say we have about 8,000 of them here.

And with the salt marsh restoration project, black ducks are loving life here. We probably have 2,000 to 3,000 of them."

There are about 500,000 black ducks in the Atlantic Flyway. Foth said that population level, which had been declining for several years, has now stabilized.

In response, federal waterfowl managers changed the daily hunting limit to two black ducks per day, compared to the previous one. That's good news for coastal hunters because the salt marshes here offer popular black duck habitat.

Foth said the limit was increased because the black duck population has stabilized while the number of black duck hunters has decreased. "That's reduced the pressure on them, so the managers felt the increased limit was justified," said Foth.

Larsen said with other species like gadwall, pintails, wigeon, shovelers, mallards and blue-wing teal numbering in the hundreds on the refuge, hunters and birdwatchers alike have a lot to be liking at Prime Hook. It's estimated that in North America total, there are about 48 million ducks. That's about 34 percent above the long-term average. Of those, about 3 million are in the Atlantic flyway.

Larsen said the $50 million salt marsh and beach restoration project at the refuge has also benefited other shorebirds. "We never had nesting piping plovers before. But last year we had one nest and this year we had eight. It's kind of like the 'build it and they will come' scenario. Several fledged, and that made me feel like a proud mama. They're an endangered species. The new habitat is suiting them well."

But back to the snow geese. Not everyone is concerned they're showing up late.

I saw Walter Hopkins outside Surf Bagel Wednesday afternoon. He farms hundreds of acres of small grains west of Lewes for his family's dairy farm. He's seen his share of winter wheat damage over the years due to humongous flocks of foraging snow geese.

When I told him that snow goose numbers are down and they're showing up later and later, he had only one comment:

"That really breaks my heart."