Arrival of a Canada goose

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Arrival of a Canada goose

October 10, 2013 by Mike Powell

One of the first waves of migrating Canada geese (Branta canadensis) loudly announced its arrival and landed right in front of me in the beaver pond of my local marsh yesterday.

Last year we seemed to have geese arriving and departing so frequently that I felt like I was at a major geese transit airport. I kept expecting to hear departure announcements on a loudspeaker.

Several areas of the marsh had dried up in the last few months, because of a lack of rain, and I had been fearful that the migrating birds would not stop over. The rain storms this week have partially filled those areas, so my concerns have been partially assuaged.

When I looked at this photo, it seemed like it was mostly black and white already (except for the pink tongue), so I played around a little and converted it to black-and-white. For me, the second version really draws my eye to the texture of the feathers, but I can’t decide whether I like it more than the color version.

What do you think about the black-and-white version?

Posted in Art, Birds, Humor, Nature, Photography, wildlife | Tagged Alexandria VA, Branta canadensis, Canada Geese, Canada Goose, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, goose, Huntley Meadows Park, water landing | 13 Comments

13 Responses

on October 10, 2013 at 5:33 am | Reply Mjollnir

Great action shot Mike even if the goose does seem to be screaming, “Where’s the brakes on this thing?” 😀
- on October 10, 2013 at 5:42 am | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Thanks. It is always amazing for me to see how quickly the geese decelerate (some more gracefully than others). I remember last winter seeing some land on ice and skidding a bit across the ice, using their tails to slow down their momentum. Liquid water makes it a lot easier.
  - on October 10, 2013 at 4:35 pm Lyle Krahn
    
    Where’s the brakes is a great line for that intense expression.
on October 10, 2013 at 6:37 am | Reply New Hampshire Gardener

I like the color shot more than the black and white, but I can’t really explain why. Nice of that goose to land right in front of you. They come here to look for corn after the corn fields have been cut and you can sometimes see them in the hundreds. They seem to be extra wary of people when they’re on land though, so it’s hard to get near them.
- on October 10, 2013 at 6:48 am | Reply Mike Powell
  
  The dilemma for me was they came zooming in pretty fast and pretty close and I had trouble focusing in on a single one. The shot you see pretty much filled my frame. I was standing on a boardwalk that runs through the little pond and some of them landed within about 10-15 feet of me.
on October 10, 2013 at 7:28 am | Reply Ed

I like them both but the colour one stands out more, seems those flying poop machines are always around in Tennessee, like they just forgot to go home..:-)
on October 10, 2013 at 9:27 am | Reply iseebeautyallaroundbyrobpaine

fantastic mike, you really do terrific work
- on October 10, 2013 at 10:13 am | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Thanks. I appreciate your kind words. In this case, it was mostly the case of being in the right place at the right time. The nice thing about geese is that they announce they are coming, so I had the chance to adjust the settings of my camera before they arrived.
on October 10, 2013 at 11:36 am | Reply dianaed2013

Superbly caught
on October 10, 2013 at 10:32 pm | Reply Not stopping motion | Mike Powell

[…] I don’t want to freeze motion entirely in the way that I did in a photo of a Canada Goose landing in the water that I posted earlier […]
on October 11, 2013 at 2:19 pm | Reply nliakosNina Liakos

I like your new banner!
- on October 11, 2013 at 2:25 pm | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Thanks. I alternate between the two of them and switched back yesterday.
on October 14, 2013 at 10:41 am | Reply Van Transitions: What’s Ahead? | Acrobatic Thoughts

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