I lucked out on finding our local sighting of a rare Northern Lapwing (post here), before he disappeared to hide behind some grass. But I wasn’t ready to leave, there was so much more bird activity at this pond. I was content on staying parked for a while to see what else might occur. All the other cars had left but one.
The pond had quite a variety of birds.
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Canada Geese, Tundra Swans, American Wigeon, American Black Duck,
Mallard, and Northern Pintail are all in the above photo.
(missing species are a few Scaup which were far left of shot, and the
Northern Lapwing with a small flock of Snow Geese behind it in far right of shot.)
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I sat and watched through my binoculars all of these birds foraging and resting peacefully…..life was good for all!
In the far distance I could hear a massive flock of additional Snow Geese and Ross’s Geese coming from a distant lift-off. They quickly arrived, causing the few Snow Geese already on the ground to take flight with them.
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The beginnings of a massive flock of Snow and Ross’s Geese arriving
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What luck, the massive flock headed towards me!
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The ‘dark’ goose in top left corner is a blue morph Snow Goose, there were many in the flock.
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Fabulous flock fly-by! The noise was unbelievable, I’ll never forget it.
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The fly-by swung out wider, and they were suddenly over me.
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I shot that last photo straight up and then stopped. I just stood there and watched as thousands passed. It was so incredibly breathtaking!
“Where to land??” That’s what the geese were trying to decide.
They really thought the pond looked inviting, turned again and began descending on it.
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Snow Geese & Ross’ Geese landing on the pond
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Filling up quickly
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Most were landing on the farm land behind the pond.
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Snow Geese landing
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The Canada Geese and ducks weren’t too happy with their pond’s takeover and swam to the far left of the pond to separate.
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Finally, everyone settled in, and it quieted down. I started trying to relocate the Northern Lapwing on the shoreline among the Snow Geese, that would have been a real cool shot. No sign though.
Didn’t matter, the quiet did not last long.
Shrieking goose calls suddenly filled the air. So did goose bodies!
An immature Bald Eagle had appeared, circling overhead, causing a whirlwind tizzy!
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The geese started lifting from the farm land.
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This caused the geese on and near the pond to take off as well.
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The immature Bald Eagle circled around for a couple minutes. Enjoying it’s power no doubt.
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The geese continued to change course in direction, trying to land elsewhere, anywhere that the Eagle wasn’t going.
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Two-minutes of chaos; and the Eagle finally moved on, with much relief to the thousands of other birds trying to settle back down on the farm. Whew! No one became lunch!
An interesting side note on this massive flock. I discovered zooming in on my photos, there were numerous yellow neck-banded geese in this flock. I’ve not been able to read any numbers to report, but here’s one of my photos.
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Two yellow neck-banded Snow Geese in this flock
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If you made it this far with this long post, thank you for sticking around for the story and photos! Here are two bonus snow globe photos for you!
