Tag Archives: Birds

High drama in Canada Goose territory

I was walking quietly along a fence in our pasture. I stood in the shadow of one of the railway-tie fence posts for a while, waiting to see what might hop by or flutter overhead. When I took a few steps heading toward my next spot, I heard this outraged honking on the other side of the fence and about sixty feet away.

It was a fine upstanding Canada Goose couple, out for a stroll in what they thought were their own private grounds. And here I brazenly stepped into their line of site, an intruder and an interruption! Well, they complained vociferously.

Canada Goose

Canada Goose

A little later I heard honking overhead, saw another pair winging by, saw one land, and then the second one joined it on the field.

Canada Goose

Canada Goose

Canada Goose

Canada Goose

Panic erupted! The original occupants were extremely offended and came on the run, shrieking and honking and thrashing their wings!

Canada Goose

Canada Goose

Canada Goose

Canada Goose

Before I knew it, the newcomers had fled in panic.

Canada Goose

Canada Goose

“And don’t ever come back!”

(I like the open mouth view of the goose’s tongue as it trumpets its derisive and angry insults.)

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

IMG_9635-001

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

As I walked along the road this morning, I heard the familiar tapping, and looked around to find this guy, a kind of woodpecker we see around here quite often. I know he’s a male because the female does not have red at the throat.

As I watched through my zoomed lens, I saw the bits of bark flying as he tapped. “Stop killing my trees!”, I said as I saw that.  I stepped closer and he flew away.

Great Horned Owl

I knew she was nesting somewhere nearby. I saw her one midnight as a patch of paleness perched high in a tree behind our house, when I looked out my window. Today as I walked across our yard she swooped by me. I sat in a lawn chair for half an hour, and finally she returned.

Great Horned Owl

Great Horned Owl

After posing high up in a poplar for a few minutes, she flew by me again. I remember wondering at the stick she held in her claws. It was only as I looked at the photos on my computer tonight that I realized that was no stick she flew over my head with…

Great Horned Owl

Great Horned Owl

I have Ophidiophobia. Snake phobia. I sit here at my computer and shudder, and want to lift my feet off the floor, every time I look at these photos or think of how she flew over me with that!