Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Snow Geese at Dead Creek


I had never seen the annual spectacle of snow geese stopping over on their southward migration at the Dead Creek Wildlife Management Area in Addison County, VT. So never mind wrist, elbow and shoulder tendinitis:  the weather was right, and, dosed up on the maximum amount of ibuprofen, I drove the 2 1/2 hours to get there. When I arrived about 10:30 I was in for a great  disappointment: the geese were on a meadow about 2 football fields away, barely visible  from the viewing area with my 10 x binoculars. There were just a couple of people around and they mentioned that the geese used to come right up to the fence of the viewing area but had stayed away from it for the past 2 years.

I spent a couple of hours exploring the Brilyea Access wildlife management area, saw a some Black Ducks, Wood Ducks, Mallards, several White-throated Sparrows and Yellow-rumped Warblers. On my way back I drove around to the other side of the field and found the view from there marginally better. As I was walking back to my car though, suddenly a great commotion, thousands of geese were suddenly rising up in the air, first heading toward me, but then circling around for several minutes and finally settling back on the same meadow. Fortunately I had my camera ready to go:




Snow Geese resting on the meadow



then suddenly rising up



circling about with a great deal of honking






and finally settling back down



It was a happy day!

6 comments:

  1. Oh wow......spectacular. I've never seen the beauty of a flock of snow geese in a field rising up and settling back down. I caught them flying overhead, but after seeing your photos, this is something I have to see!

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  2. Wow, I think the most snow geese I have every seen was ...2


    Did you take these picture with your fancy camera, or your fz28?

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  3. Kelly, as I said it was sheer luck. I had been in the area for a couple of hours and was just about leave. I probably won't get another chance.

    Laurent, yes I used my fancy camera withthe 150 - 500mm telephoto lens. I find that with enough ibuprofen it's tolerable. I still carried the FZ28 as back-up, but did not use it. However it would be hard to use the big camera while carrying a baby on your chest. But hey, owning a baby is so incomparably better than owning a fancy camera!!:-}

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  6. OH MY...what a splendid sight that had to have been!

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