The bridge in Louisville is the last of the 5 bridges that I crossed yesterday. I took this photo from the parking area by the historic marker.

I learned a little history. Now it’s your turn.

I reproduced the image from the sign. Something seemed off when looking at the sign then back to the river. The sign seemed to be placed where the old photo was taken (much like mine above) but there is something wrong in the view. The historic photo had to be taken from the other side of the bridge and diagonally across the river from the sign location.

Notice the dam? Notice the reflections on the water? Calm water is always on the upriver side of a dam. No wonder the photo on the sign looked backwards to me.

Class dismissed, back to the wild goose chase.
There were only snowmobile tracks headed upriver.

The open channel on the far side of the bridge was goose free.

I’ll have to zoom in if you want to see the two geese in the right channel.

Sleeping Honker
…and I bet you complain about your heating bill.

Goose stepping on ice

Time to give up the silly walk

and go for a cold swim.

Do geese float or swim?
This one is creating a good bow wake just staying in place in the swift current.

This goose was looking for something to eat and kept bobbing during the search. The river is shallow enough for the goose to reach the river bed.

Safe harbor? Dead End? Nope, just another place to stick your beak in.

I was going to finish and publish this post right after the first part but I got off my duff and left it while the getting was good. I’m back from Stone Valley now and getting this post out of the way. Expect to see a winter wonderland tomorrow.

…goose spotting from bridges over the Grasse River

Starting at Bucks Bridge
The only sign of any geese looking upriver from the bridge is the footprints in the snow.
- lower left of the photo

The river on the other side of the bridge turned out to be a very fowl place. Canadian Geese and ducks (mallards?) mingled with the domestic white geese from the riverside farm.

Duck!
The ducks wanted no part of my presence and flew away but I managed to catch the last of the 5 during take off.

Sorry, this is a white tux only party.

Not enough junk in the trunk I guess.

Next stop – Madrid
No sign of any geese but the ice continues to build up at the dam.

The ice and snow has continued to reach out over the top of the waterfalls since my last photos on Feb 1st. With +40 F. temps predicted by Wed. (16th) I’m afraid the ice won’t be able to hold on. It also means I better get off my duff and go to Stone Valley while the getting is good.

Next stop – a drive by photo shoot at Chamberlain Corners. I didn’t bother getting out of the truck. I posted better photos of the river at this location on Feb 1st. There were no waterfowl then and the ones today were too far away even at max zoom (18x) to make a guess at what they were. Ducks maybe?

Continuing downriver brings us to Chase Mills.
The RR bridge can be seen while looking downriver from the southern bridge abutment.

These are more drive by photographs. This one from the middle of the bridge provided the first glimpse of something fowl on the water. You can’t see them in this photo but there were birds there.

See? Too bad they were so far away, this was another 18x full zoom pic

I’ve already overburdened this post with too many photos. I’ll have to continue with the last stop at Louisville on the next post.

I’ll start at the end of today’s wild goose chase. I went bridge hopping along the Grasse River and had a very sucessful wild geese shoot. On the way home a couple other birds got shot along the way. So before I post the geese photos I want to get these turkeys out of the way.

There must have been over a hundred turkeys out looking for treats where a farmer had spread manure. Winter is no time to get fussy about the source of your corn. The turkeys were well over 500 feet from the road but it wasn’t near enough distance between us to stop them from taking off as soon as I stopped.

I was lucky to catch a couple of the wild butterballs defying gravity. They were gone before I really had a chance to shoot.

Something about the higher ones makes me think of bats.

So now you know. Turkeys can fly when they need to. They’re limited in range but had no problem clearing the trees at the far side of the field.

A Cooper’s Hawk was the last thing I photographed today. I was just down the road from the house when I spotted the hawk’s silhouette. I expected it too would take off before I had a chance to capture it’s likeness. They usually do. This was the first time one didn’t get it’s feathers ruffled over me this year.

The sun wasn’t doing me any favors. I was on the wrong side of the tree and facing toward the sun. I really expected these to be silhouettes.

That’s better. The Cooper’s Hawk never took an eye off me but it at least it was no turkey about getting photographed.

Accipiter cooperii

I’ll leave the sleeping goose lie for now.

Tomorrow is soon enought to report on the wild goose chase.