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TROY, Mo. (AP) -- Snow geese have been turning up in eastern Missouri in record numbers recently.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the snow geese have apparently been driven southeast to the St. Louis area by heavy snow in northern and western Missouri where they usually stop over on the way back to their nesting grounds in the Arctic.

Local experts estimate that in some cases as many as 50,000 of them have converged on a single field.

Wildlife biologist Eric Merritt says however that the influx won't last much longer. Merritt says the geese will be heading north again soon.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - Snow cover in western Missouri is pushing an unusually large number of snow geese into eastern Missouri near the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.

The Department of Conservation says a conservation area in Lincoln County north of St. Louis recorded 7,000 snow geese, with an estimated 15,000 birds in the surrounding area.

Snow geese spend the winter in Missouri and other southern areas of their range. They return north to the Arctic to nest.

The birds are common in marshes, rivers, lakes and crop fields. They move constantly to seek a place to feed.