As I was getting ready to leave Esther Simplot Park, headed home, I noticed a white bird flying towards me from the direction of State St. The wing beat was inconsistent with the wingbeat of a gull, the most common white bird l see. As I watched, I realized it had black wing tips. It flew right over me, and I made a preliminary decision it was a Snow Goose. It then circled Quinn’s Pond and headed back the way it came. As it got further away, it started losing altitude.
I raced back to the back pond at Esther Simplot, and there, floating on the pond, was my Snow Goose. It hung around out in the middle, but I was able to take a seat on a park bench and get a good steady perch for my binos. I finally left around 1pm and it was still floating around near one of the “bubblers” that are intended to keep the pond from stagnating. Hopefully it will find the place to its liking, but my impression was that it viewed all the ponds at Esther and decided the back one had the least traffic. Too nice a day for it to stay that way for very long.
Tom McCabe, Boise