Canada Geese

I was beavering away on applying for a job on Friday morning, when suddenly Taz started barking up a storm, as if we we were being stormed by a horde of banshees!! I looked out the window and saw all these Canada Geese on our lawn, which is obviously what Taz was all excited about. By the time I got out the camera, they had strolled (yes, if geese can stroll, that's what they were doing) across the road and started down towards the lake.

Pano - Dec 6, 2009
I took this panorama on Sunday morning for several reasons. First, I had just been reading the news about the big snowstorms that hit Calgary and Edmonton, and was feeling thankful that we didn't have any snow yet. Second, this was the first morning that we could see notable coverage of ice on the lake, although it is not frozen over. And thirdly, there were no geese on the lake!!

Okay, I spoke too soon about the 'no geese on the lake'. When I was taking the dogs out for a walk, the geese starting flying in, honking at everyone to get out of their way.

Wow! What a lot of geese! And there were more coming too!!

As the geese were coming in to land, most heading right for the water. A few came in over the ice and skidded around. The ice was strong enough to hold their weight, well - maybe not if a whole lot of them were together.

It was interesting to see that some geese saw their was ice below them as they came in to land. When they got fairly low, maybe 5-6 feet off the ice, they leveled off and started flying towards the open water. You can see four of them doing just that in this photo - at the bottom right , behind the tree. You can also see a couple of geese standing on the ice at the middle centre of the photo.