26 December 2019 (goose)

a set of new clothes

for the holidays

goose lawn statue

October 8: Aldermere Farm

calls of geese
landing in the field
among silent cows

March 28: Spring Snowy Owl

Birded Scarborough Marsh this morning. Despite the remnants of snow and a lingering chill, spring waterfowl--geese and ducks--are returning at last, courting and displaying on the rising waters of the spring marsh. And yet, two Snowy Owls linger during this season on the cusp...

 

Ducks return to the marsh.

And yet, Arctic owls linger

in melting snow.

Posted with Blogsy

March 15: Hooded Merganser

Ducks are migrating northward. After only seeing one or two for days, observed a big cluster of Buffleheads on the river late today, along with a half dozen Ring-Necked Ducks and one Hooded Merganser, a male, showing off his full "hood," strutting his stuff upriver in all his glory. A very attractive duck, but no females (of his own species, at least) were around to appreciate him. Also on the water were two pairs of geese and a pair of Mallards. It's that time of year.

Lone merganser drake
on full display.
Ice still edges the river.

February 4: White goose

My husband and I got up early this morning in order to hit the Rockland breakwater before work--in hopes of seeing a Ross's Goose that has been hanging out there at lower tides amid a flock of Canada Geese. This goose is very similar to the Snow Goose that sometimes passes through this area in late fall/winter, only about half the size. It breeds in the Arctic and usually winters near the Gulf Coast, so this errant bird was a bit off course. We'd never seen one before.

Fortunately when we scanned the water just offshore at the breakwater "beach" this morning, this little white goose was easy to pick out of the crowd, even though all the geese were sleeping. Since we both had to rush off to work, we worried that our only view of this life bird might be as a floating white blob with its head under its wing. But just as we were getting ready to walk back to our cars, it woke up and then briefly stood up out of the water atop a rock, as if to show itself off to us before shortly thereafter drifting back to sleep on the water. Apparently the flock is a drowsy one that early in the morning.

Although not so drowsy that when I returned to my car and then decided five minutes later to go back to the beach with my camera and try to get a photo, I found that the entire flock of about 70 geese had disappeared. Only a spanse of exposed rocks remained. The flock, I found, had shifted to an inlet on other side of the breakwater, and most of the birds were back asleep.

Drifting offshore,
does the sleeping white goose
dream of ice floes?

Can you pick out the little white Ross's Goose?

May 14: On alert

I heard loud cawing and looked out the window to see a swirl of crows in the pine and the pair of Canada geese standing in their usual spot, looking very much on guard. Just as I had my hand on the door to go out and try to get a better look at what all the fuss was about, my director yelled for me from his office. Thinking it was work-related, I turned back and went in to talk to him. "There are five upset crows out there!" he said. Back to the door I went, chuckling to myself at how alert we can be to what's going on outside even as we focus on our work.
 
My presence on the porch flushed the crows to a more distant tree, and I never did see why they were so agitated. From their posture and location, I can only assume it was something on the ground--a stalking cat, perhaps, or maybe even the raccoon we've seen bumbling through the riverside alders.
 
Alarm calls of crows
make even me pause, look out
on sudden alert.

May 7: First gosling

While in the middle of an intense phone conversation at the office today, I was delighted to look out the window and unexpectedly see the local pair of Canada geese escorting one tiny gosling upriver.

A single gosling--
already hatched out, floating
between its parents.

March 30: Matched pair

A pair of geese--probably the same pair as last year--has a nest near my office. I think it's somewhere along the shore of the river near the access road to the Seabright Dam, but I haven't wanted to go seeking it out. I'm sure the constant traffic of town vehicles to access the dam, dog walkers, fishermen, and then in warmer weather, swimmers, harasses them enough. But while I've conscientiously kept my distance, I've been very aware of their renewed presence this past week. One or both of them always seem to be there, beady black eyes on the lookout, those sleek black heads and necks every so often rising like periscopes on the lookout. They probably pay as much attention to our goings-on as we do theirs. There's something I find inexplicably comforting about their presence, despite their aura of intense alertness. Perhaps grazing animals of any sort--and these big birds do seem to spend most of their time heads down, poking around in the grass--have a pastoral effect on a landscape.

Our neighbors, the geese,
keep a close watch on us all.
Eggs are so fragile.

February 18: Goose

Sitting at the computer this morning with the cat next to me, we both heard a goose honk overhead, somewhere far above the house. The cat was very responsive to the sound, which I found interesting since she's strictly an indoor cat and doesn't normally pay a whole lot of attention to what's going on out the windows.

Even the house cat
turns her head when the goose calls
while flying high, north.