Posted on February 20, 2012 in Documentary, Nature, Wildlife, Winter
They’re back!!! The snow geese and tundra swans have returned to Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area in Pennsylvania. This is an annual stopping point along their migration route and from mid-February until mid-March, numbers of snow geese as high as 100,000 stop by to pay a visit and roost on the lake. When I visited, the count was 35,000+ snow geese …. this is a photo of 3 of them! I tried counting to make sure that the Middle Creek website was accurate with their numbers, but I lost track after about 12,471. They all started to look alike at that point! 🙂 I love visiting and watching the geese take flight throughout the day! There is nothing like the sight of 35,000 geese taking off together, 70,000 wings flapping, and WOW the sound is just amazing! I have a zillion images to look through but this one stood out at first glance. It appears that the two in the back are playing ‘follow the leader’!
Posted on October 2, 2011 in Animals, Nature, Wildlife
I haven’t seen deer in my yard in a very long time. Before homes were built on either side of my property, they used to come through regularly. I don’t know if they have altered their path or if there are just less deer in the neighborhood. While making dinner this afternoon I glanced out the kitchen window and saw this doe along with one of her babies munching on the plants in my back yard. Isn’t she beautiful? I guess this could explain why I didn’t have so many flowers this year! 🙂 I sure didn’t want to scare her off because I love seeing wildlife in my yard. I grabbed my camera and managed a few quick images before they moved back into the woods. What a treat to see them today! I hope they enjoyed their dinner in my flower garden!
Posted on March 9, 2011 in Nature, Wildlife
What I love about this image is that every snow goose is looking to the right! It really took a lot of effort to coax them all to pose like this, but I think it was worth it, don’t you?! 🙂 Actually, I waited 3 weeks for this type of image at Middle Creek. In mid-February, the lake was still mostly frozen so all of the birds were out on what little open water there was. On my 2nd visit, more of the lake was thawed and the birds were a little closer to land. Finally this past weekend the lake was totally thawed and the birds had come ashore and were feeding in a field by the main road. I was able to climb up the hill and watch them fairly close! Next time I’ll see if I can get them all to look at the camera! 🙂
Posted on March 6, 2011 in Nature, Wildlife
This is one of my favorite images from this weekend at Middle Creek. The lake is no longer frozen and so the geeze, swans, and ducks were much closer to Willow Point where we go to view the migration. There were even some snow geese on land as evidenced by yesterday’s post. Friday was a wonderful day to photograph as the geese were on the move all afternoon – flying back and forth between the water and the field behind us in large numbers. Yesterday was a totally different day. Not only were the geese less active, but there were throngs of people there as it’s the peak of migration and there was a spot about Middle Creek on the news. I wonder if the geese and swans realize just how popular they are? 🙂
Posted on March 5, 2011 in Animals, Nature, Painting Effect, People, Wildlife
….and you might not need that extra long lens!! 🙂 Most everyone visiting Middle Creek to see the geese migration either has a camera or binoculars. The whole idea is to watch nature at its best and hopefully get some nice close up images of the snow geese, tundra swans, gulls, and maybe even a bald eagle or hawk. So many photographers have fabulous long lenses to try and bring the sometimes far-away birds up close in the camera. In this image the photographer is gazing out toward the lake, waiting for an opportunity for some close-up images of the birds. Hmm…..I don’t think he needed to look very far!