Never shot a bird before

[Tinstafl]

Well, I am a landscape and human shooter. I have shot my dog before but that was 2 years ago. I saw this family of Geese walking by the front yard on the way to my pond. They had been walking around it after the rain looking for food it seems.

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geese-2020_DSC2307.jpg by Tins Pics, on Flickr

 

[Allan]

If you do it a few. More times you will get hooked. Then comes a 600mm lens.

 

[Tinstafl]

If you do it a few. More times you will get hooked. Then comes a 600mm lens.

Painful thought.

 

[Terri French]

Cute little family!

 

[dossy]

Love it!

 

[Palouse]

Nice stuff John. I'm afraid Allan is right

 

[Clix Pix]

Aw, aren't the goslings cute! We have a goose couple on our little lake and I am watching for wee ones, but so far haven't seen any and I haven't determined where the nest is, if indeed there is one. Goslings and ducklings are always such a fun arrival in Springtime!

 

[JLH]

When you said you had never "shot" a bird before I had this picture of an over and under 20 gauge with number seven shot. Just kidding...but geese! We never shoot geese where I live! My Border Collie herds them into the pond and we then encourage them to migrate to a near by wilderness where they can live without polluting our pond and its surrounding banks. Years ago when I moved in the pond was over populated with about 50 of these invaders and the water and land around it was poisoned by them! Maggie the Border Collie took care of that issue. I trained her to only herd adult geese. Its fun to see her just walk right by a duck and ignore it! Now we have real birds come to see us....Blue Herons, various hawks, green herons, a variety of beautiful ducks and on rare occasions some rare out of town travelers will stop by.
Its amazing how many great bird photos I have gotten right next to our house....once we got those darn geese to move over to the park and clear up the pond for the other birds.

 

[drr1531]

I'd say you did good.

 

[Tinstafl]

Thanks. We have about ten that winter on our pond. They are not a problem but beavers do get a different shoot style. They are constantly damming up the overfliw and as we are river fed pond the water level goes up. It has risen enough during tropical storms to cover the roadway with no damming so you see the issue. We had some Herrons and egrets the other day but on the far side.

 

[Clix Pix]

Most of the winter we had a LOT of geese, but the majority of them have disappeared now, probably found somewhere more interesting to spend the spring and summer. That is fine with us, since yes, they are messy and we have to watch where we walk on the path that goes partially around the lake, as the geese emerge from the lake and get up on the path on their way to the grass and make it quite unpleasant both for walking and viewing! Now that the weather will be getting and staying warmer, I imagine we will see other birds along with the ducks and geese -- we have had at least one GBH in residence for many years, and I think I saw him or her flying by the other day -- I hope so, as that's one at which I want to aim my long lens! The Hooded Mergansers seem to have gone off somewhere else, too, as I haven't seen them on the lake recently, but they may return next all and winter, as they did this past year.

 

[alexf]

Birding and NAS go together. No doubt.

 

[Tinstafl]

Here are a couple more of the same Geese on my Pond. They seem to only fly by the trees

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geese-2020_DSC2368.jpg by Tins Pics, on Flickr

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geese-2020_DSC2355.jpg by Tins Pics, on Flickr