I found a goose, or vice versa

This is a Chinese Swan Goose, part of a pair that call the fishing pond at Martin Luther King Park home. They are a heckuva lot bigger than most geese, but smaller than a swan. From what I could see, they also have an attitude and the rest of the pond gives them a respectable berth.

I had occasion to recently visit a local park here in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, my home town, to photograph some senior citizens from Davis Life Care Center on a fishing trip. I work at Davis, so it was a labor of love to photograph the proceedings.  It had been a few moons since I last visited the park and I had forgotten that waterfowl call the park fishing pond home.

Click on the osprey for six more osprey pictures.

I found a pair of Chinese Swan Geese. Now this sounds like I really know my stuff about geese. Nothing could be further from the truth. After making the shots, I Googled “geese with black bill” and browsed until I found a picture that matched. Google can make the misinformed appear to be just the opposite. Just sayin.’

Speaking of finding birds, a few weeks ago,  during the Felsenthal Bream Fest, I found some other birds. Ospreys. In the wild. In range of my optics. I photographed same and this week these magnificent raptors are featured on the Photo of the Week page at Corndancer dot-com where you can see five osprey pictures.

The geese were not intimidated by me as long as I kept a respectable distance. They allowed me to collect a few goose portraits which follow:

May I inquire as to who you are and why you are here?

Thank you, this is my best side. Will you post it on Facebook?

Thank goodness, I just had my feathers done this morning.

Meanwhile, back to the fishing exercise. This is cane pole territory as well as dragonfly territory. As one of the anglers dangled her bait in the pond, a dragonfly decided the fishing pole was a perfect perch.

No southern pond bank fishing trip is complete without a dragonfly landing on your pole. This one showed up right on schedule.

Here in LA, we have a lot of hardwood trees, which translates to a lot of squirrels. Due to the cuteness factor of  these little tree rodents, they are fat and happy during fair weather when the park has a lot of visitors. They twitch around, flick their tails, give you an innocent look, and out come the pistachios, Cheetos, peanuts and other miscellaneous snacks. The little boogers  have  us well trained.

This squirrel had just retreated to consume a pistachio and was carefully watching for the next manifestation of human largess.

I went back to the park the next day to see if my geese would sit for more pictures. The fickle beasts had repaired to an inconvenient area of  the pond and would not budge. Fortunately, a small dog decided the fill in for the geese.

This small dog on the outskirts of the park was my goose stand-in the second day. The city animal control department AKA “pound” is adjacent to the park premises and I’m thinking this little one may have made good his or her temporary escape.

Sixty or seventy miles to the south, I ran across a small herd of cows late in the afternoon as I was traveling to photograph the Felsenthal Breamfest. Most southern cows in small pastures relate a pickup truck to supper time, so when you stop to shoot, you always have an attentive audience. This time was no different.

These cows see my truck and think “supper.” I hated to disappoint them, but it did make a good shot. Notice the strand of “bob-wahr” in the foreground.

This week look close by, you may see something cool. I hope so.

Thanks for dropping by,
Joe Dempsey

Weekly Grist for the Eyes and Mind.

http://www.joedempseyphoto.com/
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