CHICO, California — A spectacular air show takes place during third week of January. It's the annual Snow Goose Festival in Chico.
More than 5 million geese from the Bering Strait of Alaska will be wintering here in the Sacramento Valley. The path that these birds take is called the Pacific Flyway.
Naturalist Matthew Forester gives bird watching tours at the Llano Seco Wildlife Preserve in Chico. Forester says the Sacramento Valley as a whole is an ideal location for snow geese to winter.
“We are surrounded by lots of rice fields around here, so they get a lot of their macro and microorganisms from the rice fields," said Forester.
This unique landscape is the perfect setting for photographing the snow geese, and other migratory birds. You will, however, need some sort of zoom lens. Snow geese are skittish birds and prone to fly away when they get scared.
Several birding field trips are offered during the Snow Goose Festival that will lend you an opportunity to get close to the birds.
“It takes practice for sure. You have to take hundreds of hundreds of pictures, but that’s part of the fun,” said Forester.
The field trips will take visitors to popular viewing spots like the Sutter Buttes, Bidwell Park, the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge and Rancho Esquon outside Durham. There are also a number of bird-themed activities that take place throughout the festival. The Snow Goose Festival runs from January 23 - January 27.
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