Continuing the theme of transitions from this morning, I thought I’d post a photo of several geese transitioning from rapid flight through the air to a complete halt on a frozen pond.
I love to watch geese coming in for a landing as they noisily announce their arrival, which is often accompanied with a big splash and energetic flapping of wings.
The situation is a bit more problematic when the ice is solid and any miscalculation could lead to physical injury. It appears to me that the geese flap their wings as hard as they can to decelerate and attempt to carefully place their webbed feet. That is what the goose on the left appears to be doing. If that doesn’t work, as a last resort the goose can lower his tail to slow down his forward momentum, as the goose on the right is doing.
Judging from my observations, some geese are much more adept at this type of landings than others, who slip and slide and skid for a while until they finally stop moving forward.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Mike Powell 
Great shot 😀
Thanks. Getting the focus right was a challenge, but definitely a fun challenge.
looks like it was 😀 i really need to get some shots of birds ;/
Not sure where this came from but this post seems to have enough interesting elements for making a country song – geese trying to land on ice. (I’m going for the strangest comment award today).
I’ve read that geese and other waterfowl do get hurt by slamming into ice they’ve mistaken for open water.
[…] Skidding to a halt (michaelqpowell.wordpress.com) […]