Humans flock to see snow geese

Laura Lush admits she can be a dangerous driver during bird season.

She's known for quick stops or keeping her eyes to the sky instead of the road if she spots a bald eagle or stumbles upon an evening flyout. But no one need worry about her car skills this weekend, because she will be hoofing it through the Sutter Buttes to lead a hike for the 13th annual Snow Goose Festival of the Pacific Flyway.

Her participants determine the hike's focus, whether birds or buttes, she said, but she cannot help but slip into sightings and stats on area avians, said Lush, a Yuba City resident, teacher and birder.

"The running joke is kids have ADD, but I have BADD, bird attention deficit disorder," she said.

The Snow Goose Festival of the Pacific Flyway is one of the five largest bird festivals in California, according to organizers. During a four-day span that starts Thursday, it offers more than 80 field trips and workshops in six counties aiming to increase awareness about local and migratory waterfowl and fuel outdoors appreciation.

Slideshow: Snow Goose Festival preview

Some events take place in and around Yuba-Sutter, including tundra swan viewing with Yuba County rice grower Charlie Mathews and Fish and Game wildlife biologist Dale Whitmore. There are also a range of hikes into the Sutter Buttes with members of the Middle Mountain Foundation, a California state park ranger, and a Buttes landowner and U.S. Forest Service biologist.

At Mathews' rice fields in District 10, the major focus is on the tundra swans, but participants can also expect to see snow geese and sometimes bald eagles, great blue herons and pelicans.

"When you see hundreds of them in the fields, it's quite a sight," he said.

Fish and Game has been hosting weekend tundra swan tours for months and they always sell out, said Mathews, who complements the tours with a discussion about the wetland habitat the flooded rice fields provide and the reciprocal benefit farmers have with waterfowl.

The snow goose is the festival's signature bird, since it is one of the most numerous of area waterfowl, but Yuba-Sutter is also a crucial wintering ground for other geese, ducks, cranes and raptors and year-round home to dozens of other birds.

"We are part of a really special bird zone," Lush said. "We get caught up in everyday life, but stop and look. They are what we hear in the sky at night."

Among the numerous field trips, the festival offers bird box and bird sculpture building, art shows by Northstate artists, sketching and photography workshops and a bird-watching trek with famed birder Greg Miller of the book and movie, "The Big Year."

"It's a great opportunity for local birders to come together and share birding with people who might be novices or just getting interested or even kids," she said. "If you have any interest at all, there is something for you."

CONTACT Ashley Gebb at agebb@appealdemocrat.com or 749-4783. Find her on Facebook at /ADagebb or on Twitter at @ADagebb.