To the Point: Specks in the Sky

From our March/April 2025 issue

Human nature being what it is, bird lovers of all stripes will seek the rare species. For this waterfowl hunter, that would be the white-fronted goose, aka “specklebelly.” With the species’ migration confined to western North America, a specklebelly flying through Michigan where I live is as scarce as a Blaze Orange cap in a duck blind. Wanting to bag one of these Arctic-bred geese, I needed to go elsewhere. Hunting trips to Galveston, Texas, and Gueydan, Louisiana, turned out to be busts—evidence why many consider these wary geese trophy birds. Finally I did shoot one—in Mexico of all places.

It was after a SHOT Show in Dallas when friends and I crossed the McAllen, Texas, border into Reynosa, Mexico, and drove to meet an outfitter who specialized in snow goose hunts. The trip took place in January, when specks that have been shot at can be more spread-shy and call-shy than ever. Before dawn one morning we helped our guide put out a stool of snow goose half-shells, which he methodically rearranged to his liking. As we disappeared into augured pit blinds, he added a half-dozen full-body specklebelly decoys—a “confidence booster,” he said—to create a family unit off to the side.

Soon after legal shooting time the first birds to appear were a knot of white-fronts that passed high over our spread, their queer cackles sounding like laughter. The guide chuckled into his mouth call, but the joke was on us when the geese refused to turn and flew off for good. The calls, though, attracted a second flock of a half-dozen birds that sailed by before dropping lower during a wide turn. Their second pass was only 30 yards above us, and when the guide barked, “Take ’em now!” we came alive with guns blazing. The goose I swung through fell like a feathered sack and hit the ground hard, barely missing my head. Even now, years later, that incident seems bizarre.

I remember, too, how strangely handsome the three specks we shot that morning were. Their tangerine-colored bills and feet and white facial flares above the bills appeared identical, but the black spots on their breasts—characteristic of adult birds and the reason for the name specklebelly—were as distinct as human faces. That’s because no two specklebellies are exactly alike.

Search the sky long and hard during a winter waterfowl hunt, and you might see specks moving across the gray clouds. My optometrist says these are floaters that cataract surgery can make disappear. I say they’re incoming specklebellies.