…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.

Yesterday’s dam trip continued north about 6 miles so I could get a look at the Grasse River from the bridge at Chamberlain Corners. The following scenes are looking south and back upriver towards Madrid.

A closer look at the brown spot reveals water surging up through a crack and flowing over the ice.

The two short channels branching off the open pool of water have recently frozen over. You can barely see where the channel on the lower right once flowed. The channel on the left disappears under the ice for only a short distance before continuing on after feeding the brown spot. It was a great fight ma but the open water never had a chance. The channel in the ice never made it past the bridge.

I’m glad I have a camera with a decent zoom function. I can’t tell what me eyes are seeing at that distance. I could tell there was something sitting in the river but couldn’t make it out.

Even at full 18x zoom I can’t really tell if it’s an ice encrusted boulder or a conglomeration of just plain old ice but at least I know it wasn’t my imagination or a speck on my glasses.

No walk today. The snow isn’t exactly blowing sideways but it’s still coming down hard enough to be a pain trying to keep my bi-focals and camera lens clear. Even the dog refused to go out.

This dam place is freezing in Feburary.

After seeing the waterfalls completely frozen over in Canton the other day I expected to find more ice at the dam in Madrid. A few fingers of ice have nearly spanned the gap between the top and bottom of the dam. They are fragile looking slivers hard to see in the rushing water. Ice is building up at the base but it has a good way to go before being as impressive as I’ve seen in the past.

Water flows freely from under the ice that’s trying to reach out past the top of the dam.

Looking down river at the Madrid bridge.

Sub-zero temps are still due so the ice will continue to build up. It will be tempting to go back but I really don’t need to. I took my annual NO SWIMMING photo before I left.

The rule is strictly enforced by Old Man Winter