They can be seen flying overhead during certain times of the day, descending up fields to feed like a small blizzard. They rest up and often spend nights on waterways, creating a white island of floating birds.

They’re snow geese from Canada, which spent the cold winter months in New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. With spring around the corner, they’re now migrating in great numbers through Upstate New York, stopping to fuel up as they return to their Arctic breeding grounds.

They come in great numbers – numbers so great that wildlife biologists across the country are concerned about over population and the ecological damage (particularly to agriculture) that these birds cause. Here in New York, there’s a special “conservation…