Bridges
Loc: Memphis, Charleston SC, now Nazareth PA
What inspired me to post this is a small pleasure I have enjoyed for the last thirty-three years since moving to the Lehigh Valley of PA.
We are on the flyway for Snow Geese coming down from Canada. The geese will come down around dawn and fill many acres of the harvested corn fields in the area. They are eating the kernels thrown off as the harvesters load corn into large dump trucks that haul them out of the fields. In addition to kernels being thrown off by the transfer process, additional kernels get jostled out of the trucks.
In the late afternoon, after feeding all day, the geese take to the skies and look for a lake or pond to land in for the night. They form massive V-shaped formations that stretch for miles. Tens of thousands make this transfer from fields to water each day. This goes on for about three weeks until colder weather drives them farther south. Sometimes you can catch these formations set against a great sunset and that is truly awe-inspiring.
I love standing outside and watching as wave after wave of these geese fly over (better they fly over a little off from directly overhead as they can plaster an area with droppings -- my car and driveway have been victim to that on several occasions). You can hear them from a mile away. Sometimes the stream of honkers lasts for ten or fifteen minutes.
Remembering films I've seen of D-day, also makes me think of the waves of bombers the Germans must have seen as the formations flew over in support of the Allied landings at Normandy.
Once they are in the sky, they begin to form V-formations of 25 to 50 birds each and these Vs travel alongside or behind other Vs.
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Usually the birds swirl in and out in groups of 50 or so but on this occasion, they all lifted off at the exact same moment.
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Wonderful! Nature is transcendental.
Bridges
Loc: Memphis, Charleston SC, now Nazareth PA
badapple wrote:
Wonderful! Nature is transcendental.
Thank you, and yes it is!
Very interesting!!! Must be a beautiful thing to watch (as long as the droppings don’t hit you in the eyes or mouth :-)). I enjoyed your pictures of the geese. And, would like to see one of your pics of geese against the backdrop of a sunset. Must be awesome.
When I was learning to fly in northern California in about 1970, one day my instructor said "look down to your left." There, several thousand feet below us was a flock (herd? whatever?) of snow geese heading north. It looked like a giant white river, undulating slowly side to side down its length while the whole thing moved smoothly up the valley. A sight I'll never forget.
Bridges
Loc: Memphis, Charleston SC, now Nazareth PA
whatdat wrote:
Very interesting!!! Must be a beautiful thing to watch (as long as the droppings don’t hit you in the eyes or mouth :-)). I enjoyed your pictures of the geese. And, would like to see one of your pics of geese against the backdrop of a sunset. Must be awesome.
My goal is to capture that scene eventually. It seems the times I've enjoyed that view the geese were not close enough to make a good photo. If it were possible to know the exact time when a nice red/orange sunset would happen, and where exactly the flyovers would occur, I could set up a 500 mm lens to capture the scene. While I almost always have a camera and tripod in the car, I don't always have a long lens with me. Now that the geese have moved away, it will be next fall before there is another chance.
Bridges
Loc: Memphis, Charleston SC, now Nazareth PA
wrangler5 wrote:
When I was learning to fly in northern California in about 1970, one day my instructor said "look down to your left." There, several thousand feet below us was a flock (herd? whatever?) of snow geese heading north. It looked like a giant white river, undulating slowly side to side down its length while the whole thing moved smoothly up the valley. A sight I'll never forget.
Well, at least being above them, you didn't have to worry about their "bombing run"!
My small free pleasure is actually quite large sometimes. In a wet year we have abundant wildflowers all over the desert!
Your pictures are wonderful. They are so sharp and clear.
Nice picture! You must have expensive cameras.
God's nature is truly remarkable! And enjoying it is, indeed, a free pleasure!
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