Some times the simplest things are the best....

Yesterday my wife and I were taking our afternoon walk along the Columbia River. We stopped to watch as a flock of geese came in to land in a neighbor's yard. As we stood there geese kept coming until the flock had more than doubled in size.

What a way to spend time on a beautiful afternoon....

A Beautiful TriCities Afternoon - YouTube

Is that a staging post on a migration path? I hope the farmers land was not to hammered, worth it though for the sake of the geese.

Geese can be beautiful, but have you ever checked the ground after they're gone?

Several years ago my son talked me into letting him raise a goose for the county fair. I can testify that while beautiful the mess left behind is mind boggling.

Coots are neat, but awfully shy as opposed to ducks and geese that frequent marinas and parks.

Coots are fun to chase around in your dinghy!

A friend of mine has a couple of Falcons. He hunts with regularly.

It seems there are no limit to the number of geese you can take with a falcon.

Each Falcon has a different attack.

One hits from above. The other will turn upside down and rake the belly of the goose with it's talons to kill it in mid air

Absolutely spectacular to watch a Falcon take a large Canada goose.


Goose dinner anyone. MMMM!!!

Sd
Sorry to kill the feel good things about wildlife. but Alaska is a place of extremes. I would say 80% of the men I know up here hunt regularly.
It's a way of life for many. If you catch any of the Alaska reality shows you will know what I mean.

Anchored in a cove on the Chesapeake in the fall with a full moon is magical. You can hear and see the geese flying over to the fields to settle in for the night. I have sat out for hous watching and listening to this ritual. When a fox or deer comes to the waters edge it just adds to the magic. No place better.

Keith,
I doubt if the Coots agree w you. Wildlife should not be harassed.

In LaConner, WA, north of Seattle, the farmers have turned Snow Geese into a winter tourist attraction. They leave their fields for the geeses in the winter and thousands and thousands of white snow geese show up. Lots of people drive up now just to see the geese. And the farmer gets a lot of free nitrogen added to his fields! A win-win for the geese, the farmers and the local economy!

We once caught a small coot on a down rigger while trolling for salmon. I had seen them diving for a bait ball as we passed over at about 60' below the surface. After a few minutes my down rigger was bumping slightly but never released. I assumed I had some grass or a shaker on so brought it up. He was sure glad to see me and get above the surface. He had hooked on the spoon I was trolling and would have surely drowned. We got him in the boat and calmed down enough to get the hook out and off he went.

So I can actually say I've caught a coot.

This friendly Mallard pair came to greet me. (Someone must have been feeding them.)

SomeSailor said:

So I can actually say I've caught a coot.

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Me too.

Ducks I love, but can do without the geese. They used to be migratory here in the Philadelphia area but people started feeding them many years ago so they never left. They have really foul (fowl) tempers and if they decide to call your dock home you spend all your time scrubbing everything down. The only thing that gets rid of them (besides a shotgun) is a swan or a labrador retriever. It's a real party when one of those show up.
John

Today took a photo of three coots: two feeding and one tied up.

Sanford, FL, May 2012

Dang, Ron. I'd much rather put up with ducks and geese than that long slinky looking thing in your bottom picture. That would be downright scary to see swimming around a marina or where you're anchored in a cove somewhere.

That sure would put a damper on swimming!!!!!!!

GFC said:

Dang, Ron. I'd much rather put up with ducks and geese than that long slinky looking thing in your bottom picture. That would be downright scary to see swimming around a marina or where you're anchored in a cove somewhere.

That sure would put a damper on swimming!!!!!!!

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That one apparently lives in the marina. We saw dozens more on our trip and some swam around us while we were anchored. No, we didn't swim.

We saw manatees also and my wife petted one.

THD said:

In LaConner, WA, north of Seattle, the farmers have turned Snow Geese into a winter tourist attraction. They leave their fields for the geeses in the winter and thousands and thousands of white snow geese show up. Lots of people drive up now just to see the geese.

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We drive thought the Skagit delta (where La Conner is) just about every weekend of the year going to and from the boat in Bellingham. We have noticed that in recent years the number of snow geese coming to the delta to winter has fallen off dramatically. Where we used to see huge flocks all over the Delta we now see perhaps only one or two each winter. The flocks are still big, but there aren't very many of them anymore.

What HAS increased very dramatically in numbers are the trumpeter swans. Where in years past we would see small groupings of them here and there in the Delta we are now seeing whole fields populated with them during the winter. Their numbers have reached the point where a lot of people today think they are looking at snow geese flocks when in fact they are looking at huge groups of trumpeter swans.

I have no idea why the number of snow geese flocks are dwindling so fast in the Skagit Delta. It's not an endangered bird so far as I know. I suspect they are wintering someplace else as man's activities in the Delta slowly increase. Or perhaps the trumpeter swans are the dominant bird and the snow geese are finding other wintering grounds with less competition for food. In the UK over the last 20 years the non-native Canadian goose has taken over many of the inland waterways that used to be home to all sorts of indigenous waterfowl species. The indigenous birds have simply disappeared as the Canadian geese have moved in and their numbers increased. The same sort of thing could be happening in the Delta during the winter with the swans and the geese.

THD said:

In LaConner, WA, north of Seattle, the farmers have turned Snow Geese into a winter tourist attraction. They leave their fields for the geeses in the winter and thousands and thousands of white snow geese show up. Lots of people drive up now just to see the geese. And the farmer gets a lot of free nitrogen added to his fields! A win-win for the geese, the farmers and the local economy!

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in at least one western state, california, farmers are paid to feed the water fowl and maybe its the same in Washington? CAlifornia's central valley is winter home to a good portion of the pacific flyways migrating water fowl and other birds. Most of the valleyhas been taken over by intensive agriculture leaving little forage for the birds. When i was a kid i would have trouble sleeping at certain times because of the huge flocks of geese looking for a place to land. foggy nights were the worst. Now a days your lucky to see a single flight come by. Sad, i miss those birds.........

Many of the farmers in the Skagit Delta participate in programs to help the migrating birds and the ones that come to the Delta for the winter. Planting certain grasses in fields they are going to let "rest" for a year or so, altering their plowing schedules, and so forth. I don't know that any of them actually feed the birds. But there are a lot of things they do to make it easier for the birds to survive the winter on their land.

Visibility panels have been installed on a lot of the phone and power wires in the delta, particularly those lying across the most-used flight paths in and out of the fields.

Marin said:

Many of the farmers in the Skagit Delta participate in programs to help the migrating birds and the ones that come to the Delta for the winter. Planting certain grasses in fields they are going to let "rest" for a year or so, altering their plowing schedules, and so forth. I don't know that any of them actually feed the birds. But there are a lot of things they do to make it easier for the birds to survive the winter on their land.

Visibility panels have been installed on a lot of the phone and power wires in the delta, particularly those lying across the most-used flight paths in and out of the fields.

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we certainly could do more. I for one would not be fond of the idea of living in a world without wildlife