The geese Yunie Kim saw and photographed were hardly Canada geese.

They are a large flock of brants, a smallish brown goose with a fairly short neck with a white ring around it. The brants have been patrolling the area on the south side of Alki Point down to Emma Schmidt Viewpoint all winter as they do every winter. They are especially happy at low tide as that is when they feed. You can see them tipping their bottoms in the air to feed in the shallows.

Rather than having just arrived, they are about to leave for the Arctic Ocean where they spend the summer. It appears to me that their numbers may actually be increasing in recent years, unlike many other species which used to be plentiful in winter here but which we seldom see now.

Walter Marquardt

Westwood