Every time I witness a blastoff of Snow Geese, I am awestruck. Thousands of geese rise in unison and take to the air in a swirling mass of wings. It is a noisy spectacle as well because as they ascend, the thunder of their wingbeats almost drowns out the nasal honking that announces the event. Snow Geese blastoffs usually occur early morning or approaching sunset when thousands of geese are triggered into taking off at once. Sometimes the blast off announces time to return to the fields to feed, sometimes it spreads the alert of a predator patrolling in the area, sometimes it signals time to return to the night’s roosting spot. The Snow Geese blastoffs at Gray Lodge in January were not as big as those I’ve seen at Bosque del Apache in New Mexico but they were impressive just the same.