One of the cats making a lot of noise this morning woke me up far earlier than I ever should have been, given the time that I went to sleep last night/earlier this morning, but once up, I noticed the nice pall of fog out over the pond and went exploring. One set of photos is going to wait until Friday’s Estate Find, unless I get something even better before then, but we can have these now:
That’s a pair of Canada geese of course (Branta canadensis,) and I’ve been hearing them out of sight down in the lower pond, but never spotting them. The Girlfriend told me that they visited the main pond right out back while I was away the other weekend though – figures. I was working at a pretty good distance, probably in excess of 75 meters, so the fog had its chance to soften and bluify (it is too a word) the frame. Makes it fartsy.
But there’s something that’s not immediately apparent in that one, so we go to a later frame as they swam further out.
They didn’t overlap above like they do here, so it was easy to miss the perspective thing, but the closer one is quite a bit smaller than the farther one. The species is known for having a range of sizes, though, and has now been recognized with not just 11 subspecies, but a separate, new species for the smallest variations, now known as the cackling goose. We are not seeing one of those here though.
These two were conversing quietly in their way until I came into sight, whereupon they decided to maintain a little discretion, and swam out into more open water just as a precaution. I wasn’t going to get any better than this, though, and so I let them be. There was also the possibility that the mallards and wood ducks would be along soon and I didn’t want to spook those either – they’ve been visiting off and on for the past two weeks now, though the wood ducks are maintaining their sneaky ways and not letting me get a nice, clear portrait shot yet. It’ll come.