WiseAcre Gardens

north of the adirondacks – wildflowers & perennials that survive winters colder than my wife's feet

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Down to the River

Posted by WiseAcre on Dec 1st, 2008

2008

Dec 1

This post is mainly for the birds.

Pookey and I found more than that but it’s best to keep somewhat focused on one subject. We begin our walk following a deer trail in woods. This is just a back road compared to other trails the deer have made in the area.

Deer Trail
Still it’s best to stay off the road. We don’t need to get run over.

Further along we followed a tractor path through some cedar woods.

Effects of deer browsing
The trimmed – pruned look is from deer browsing. Cedar is the main forage for deer in the winter.

After following the tractor path downhill for a while we cut through some open woods. At this point we were at least a 3/4 mile from from the nearest house and found a sign feral children must be living nearby.

Ball in the woods
We got out of there quickly afraid we’d be tagged and having to be ‘it’ for the rest of the day. (neither of us run fast any longer)

It wasn’t long before we finally reached the Grasse River. We knew long before we got there what we would find. Geese feel no need to remain silent.

Geese on the river

I never got a chance to sneak up on them. Pookey had to rush to the riverbank and see what was making all that noise. Needless to say the geese just swam to the other side and I had to rely on the zoom lens on the camera to get closer.

Goose Flapping
‘oh yea, I got away from a dog with teeth this big’

Two Faced Goose – at least from a distance it looked that way.

Two Headed Goose

I bet this one has a hard time deciding whether it’s coming or going.

It can eat twice as fast as the others but it faces certain doom due to spontaneous explosion.

I didn’t edit the photo. The geese were so far away they just blended into one another.

On the way back we ran across a couple more birds. I never got a chance to shoot the woodpecker. Pookey kept chasing it but while she was busy I spotted a turkey hiding in a hedgerow on the other side of a hayfield.

The only image available to use as desktop wallpaper is a real turkey. Click the pic for the larger size

Birds , Desktop Wallpaper , winter
Comments(5)

5 Responses

Ratty Says:
December 1st, 2008 at 10:38 pm
The dog I had while growing up looked a lot like Pookey. He liked to chase anything that moved.

Watch out for those feral children, they can be dangerous. Even more so when they get older. Whenever I take my little friend Alice with me to places like this, she’s always on the lookout for wild people.
Ratty,

Pookey needs a backup. She won’t go too far ahead without knowing there’s someone slower than her in case she needs to turn around and run away.

I thought so. That’s the reason I didn’t touch the ball. I figured it was bait for a trap.
peppylady Says:
December 1st, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Your area all most look like North Idaho but nothing really froze yet here.

Coffee is on.

peppylady,
Did you know we grow potatoes too. Well about an 70 miles from my house headed east. That might seem a big distance for city dwellers but out west I imagine that’s considered almost nothing

It was a bit odd finding ice on the river. It’s been pretty mild lately and that’s the only ice I’ve seen anywhere in the last few days. I have to smarten up and start wearing my barn boots. I’ve been tramping through swampy areas and coming home with wet feet.
Grammy Says:
December 2nd, 2008 at 5:00 am
Oh how wonderful. Thanks for taking us on your adventure. What a shot of the 2 faced duck. Thats a once in a life time shot. So did you get a turkey or were you not hunting? I have only seen Turkey 2 times. Once in Ripley Wv on the side of the gravel road in a flock. And a single one in Camden. Mo. again on the side of a 2 lane highway. I am really good at spotting deer. But it is near dark so most of my photos are to dark. I counted as many as 127 on one road. In what they call a holler back there.
Have a great day !
Grammy

Grammy,
I wasn’t hunting for anything but photo ops. Spotting deer is easy here too. My best count was only 53 but that’s still a bit distressing considering they were all on my hay fields. I spot turkeys often, we have a flock of 30 – 40 roaming the area but they won’t stand still long enough to turn on the camera. They flee the fields as soon as they spot anyone, even stopping the truck alongside the road is enough for them to make a dash to the woods.

Around here a holler is my wife asking me to do chores.
Aiyana Says:
December 2nd, 2008 at 5:29 am
Well, I’m back in business. Thanks for checking. Your photos are great. I’m trying to decide what they evoke when I look at them. Very strange reaction for me–something akin to melancholy. It must be the light. I’ll have to ponder this for awhile.
Aiyana

Aiyana,
My guess it’s the lack of sunlight. It is kind of sad going from bright colored flowers to gray skies, gray birds and brown fallen leaves around here. I’m hoping for a little snow to brighten things up a bit and reflect what little sunlight we get into my windows.
Benjamin Says:
December 5th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Ha, lovely snarkey comments you have on your photos. I ADORE geese, and ever since I first encoutnered them the fall we moved to MN from OK, I’ve thought of them mystically, there calls a call home not only to each other and the world, but to me. Hokey perhaps, true for sure.

Benjamin,
I’ll let you get back to looking googly eyed at geese. To each their own. It’s all good as long as you reach your subjective communion with God without interfering with my ultimate reality.