Bosque vs Victoriaville

Hi all,

I'm looking for opinions on how these locations compare for photography. I'm not sure how many would have shot at both locations, and I cannot search for previous topics.

I realize Bosque is probably 10x more popular than Victoriaville, and has cranes and other wildlife in addition to snow geese. However, Victoriaville is a few hours drive from me as opposed to a long flight to Bosque. Hence my interest in a quick weekend in Victoriaville...

If it's that close to you, go check it out and see if it yields the kind of images that you are looking for

Chris Dodds have done both and hé told me Bosque in thé désert and is quite différent. Get in touch with him through his web site.
I was in Victoriaville à week or so ago. You can also photograph some other species as ruddy duck as I did myself. Look at : www.pbase.com/photosnature
Best time is at sunset when thousands and thousands of snow geese get back. Not sûre how many are still there now. Just a few hours drive...

Récent news : probably still around 30 -50 k geese at Victo.

I ended up making the drive. It's an interesting place, and the geese were still there in numbers this weekend. I'd imagine they'll leave any day now, with the reservoir freezing over at night.

Vs my experience of several days at Bosque, I'd note the following:

You don't have those amazing desert or mountain backgrounds. Here you have a slim sliver of trees, sky, or several taller buildings.
It's really an afternoon shoot. Mornings can be done if you're into backlighting, or re-positioning on the other bank for longer distance flock type shots.
Much easier to get close to the geese, which are in a semi-park setting. From my experience there wasn't opportunity to approach them nearly as closely (head portrait range) at Bosque, while you can do so here. As a result it's also easier to obtain individual goose photos. You can get low and near eye-level fairly easily, where Bosque tended to be a bit more distant and slightly higher up.

Can't say I prefer one to the other. Both are very different experiences, as Yves noted.

I was told there were close to 100,000 geese yesterday at the end of the afternoon.
Did you assist to the coming back from 16:00 to 17:00 : it is amazing as tens of thousands of these geese come back for sleeping on the reservoir.

Another thing to note : you came at the end of november while the peak usually begins around the third week-end of october when the BG is made with fall colors : SWEET!!!

Best time is at the end of the afternoon with clear sky and West winds. Also when the full moon rises over the place or when a blast off occurs : imagine tens of thousands geese taking off over your head... You need a good hat in order to protect youself from the «parcels» falling off from the sky...

The sky then is filled litterally with geese. You can also get pictures of geese flying on their back or falling vertically from the sky.
IMO Maybe one of the best place on earth to photograph snow geese at close range.