Celebrating 25 Years!
2025 Snow Goose Festival of the Pacific Flyway Flew to Success with the Sights, Sounds, and Wonders of Birds!
On beautiful clear wintery days, attendees viewed and got up close and personal with the geese, ducks, cranes, herons, egrets, ibis, swans, songbirds, gulls, and raptors in all their natural splendor.
Birding memories were made that will last a lifetime and many found a new passion like no other: Birds & Birding!
Some highlights of the 2025 Snow Goose Festival
- Snow Goose Festival Headquarters, Patrick Ranch Museum: a delightful and birdy venue. And a newly added venue for workshops, the Vintage Iron Museum
- Birds of Prey were a big force during West Coast Falconry Assembly on Sunday. Families and adults had an unforgettable experience seeing raptors in flight right over their heads!
- Thursday’s Raptor Run Cottonwood/Nelson Rd, record number of raptor species sightings: 11
- “Gathering of Wings” banquet, silent auction and keynote speaker Benny Isaac Jacobs-Schwartz, Keynote Address: “Feathers and Flight: A Journey to the New World Tropics”. 285 banquet attendees, 43 silent auction donors
- 19 Outstanding, Dedicated, and Generous Sponsors
- 685 total registrants
- Over 400 people attend the free Museum of Northern California Art “Birds, Birds, & More Birds, Snow Goose Festival Art Reception, Friday night.
- 79 California cities represented, and people came from 4 other states, Nevada, Hawaii, Arizona, Pennsylvania and British Columbia, Canada.
- 52 field trips, and 12 workshops, most field trips sold out.
- 82 excellent and experienced field trips leaders and workshop presenters, who volunteered their time and energy.
- We had awesome “Super Snow Goose” Volunteers
- Field Trip Coordination - Trish & Tom
- Exhibitor Coordinator - Karen
- Silent Auction - Celeste, Dave, Lollie, Sandy, Tammie, Bill, Craig, Annette, Shelby
- Art Reception - Cathy
- Publicity & Numerous SGF jobs - Carla
- Facebook - Claire
- Patrick Ranch volunteers - Hilary, Melainie, Patricia, Chelsea, Devin, Rebecca, Ilani, Marcia, Sam, Lydia, Gayle, Steven, Rachel, Adin, Stephen, Diana, Liz, Calvin, Cyndi, Claire, Steve, Carolyn, Bryce Cathy, Maggie, David, Paula, Russ, and * National Charity League-Mother/Daughter volunteer teams Youth Activities
- The staff were outstanding - Jennifer, Cathy, Jared, Ryan
See you next year at the
26th Snow Goose Festival of the Pacific Flyway
January 22 - 25, 2026
New Webcam at Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge
Explore.org added a webcam at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge. Snow Geese, Northern Pintails, and Greater White-fronted Geese can currently be seen.
Western Canal Water District Webcam
I just returned from the Snow Goose Festival in sunny, beautiful Chico, California. The events were fun, the field trips were great, the birds were enjoyable, and the people were terrific! Seeing all the waterfowl in their freshest breeding plumages was a real treat to me. My mom tells me I got excited about seeing ducks before I could talk. And those ducks still get me excited to this day. What’s not to like about a cinnamon teal? Or a shoveler or pintail? And raptors were present in good numbers, too. It was exciting for me to see golden eagles, prairie falcons, and one of my favorite hawks — the ferruginous hawk.
— Greg Miller, 13th Snow Goose Festival keynote speaker, and was featured in the book/movie "The Big Year"
