Greater White-fronted Goose AND a Ross's Goose at the Northampton Quarry! ~ January 8, 2026

Since it was a relatively warm day with no wind, my main goal was to spend some time looking through geese at both the Northampton and Nazareth Quarries for some of the rarer ones. On the way to the Northampton Quarry, I stopped at Green Pond and found a Great Blue Heron there.

I also checked the Regency ponds and found a male Wood Duck and a male Bufflehead among the roughly 300 Canada Geese.

The Silver Crest Road pond was still frozen, so I headed over to the Northampton Quarry. There were an estimated 10,000 Snow Geese and around 800 Canada Geese present when I got there.

An estimated 10,000 Snow Geese.

While scanning through them, I found a Greater White-fronted Goose! I tried to get a very long-distance documentation photo of it, but I lost it when I tried to photograph it through the brush.

With so many Snow Geese present, it was almost a guarantee that there was at least one Ross's Goose in among them. The problem was finding one. It's the ultimate "Where's Waldo" situation. Since freezing hands and feet weren't an issue on this nice day, I took advantage of that, spending the next 2-1/2 hours scanning through them. When I was about to give up, I finally found a Ross's, the miniature version of a Snow Goose with a stubby bill! It was close enough for me to actually get some photos of it, too!

Ross's Goose

I skipped the Nazareth Quarry and headed home happy.

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