Baby Geese

The Canada Geese usually disappear when the babies arrive and I never get a chance to photograph them. I just happened to see these on a river sandbar.



I tried some texturing and vignette on this next one:



Another one Sunday:


MORE:

Mystical Goose

Canada Goose


I thought this looked kinda cool. Mystical? or something.
I had to do some post-processing work. I cloned out a few branches. The right wing tips were clipped, so I copied mirrored blended the wing tips from the left side. Tone Mapping and High Pass Sharpen to increase definition. But it really was white snow drifts for background in April, yes, it's true. lol.

Canada Geese are very common around here and sometimes considered pests. I don't post anymore photos of them unless something unusual shows up like the photo above.

Zoo6 - Geese and Swans

My fav of this group were the Black Swans (Cygnus atratus):


wiki
Breeds mainly in Australia.

Trumpeter Swan (Cygnus buccinator):
(Not sure what kind of duck that is beside the swan.)

cornell
enature
North America, but not North Dakota.

Bar Headed Goose (Anser indicus):

wiki
Central Asia

Snow Goose (Chen caerulescens):

cornell
enature
npwrc checklist says present in North Dakota.

Cornell shows a "blue morph" of snow goose which looks like an unidentified duck/goose pic I have:

Cornell says:
"Until recently, the Blue Geese, as the dark birds were called, were considered a separate species. They are now recognized as merely a dark form (or "morph") of the Snow Goose."

Old Blue

I've seen "Old Blue" a lot this spring. I've taken many pics, but nothing much better than I already have. This one had a nicer setting than I usually get so will post it. Plus I had the XSi and tele with me this time so got a little closer too. He's in the same area as the breeding Canada Geese and yes, there are baby geese (goslings), but I don't have any good pics of those yet. They're adorable, so I sure hope I get some good shots of those. (google images)

Great Blue Heron
Previously

A different one is posted
here.

Foggy Morning Walking Companion

I have tons of photos of geese and robins since they are abundant right now.
I don't post unless it's something unique.
I thought this goose would fly away, but instead it kept skittering along in front of me like my walking companion or something.
I got a chuckle out of it.
I kept walking and snapping photos when its wings would come up and out.

Silly Goose and Boats

I thought this was an interesting composition because of that silly goose.
There is a fishing tournament coming up and there has been tons of boat activity on the river.
I can hear a boat coming, so I compose the shot and wait to snap the pic as the boat(s) goes by.

Geese

Things are still lookin' pretty brown and soggy around here.

The most interesting thing I saw this past weekend were Mr. and Mrs. Goose hanging out along the rec trail. (I guess they're a couple, I couldn't tell. heh heh)



What's with the leg, I have no idea.

Okay, that's enough of this photo shoot, we're outa here.



The water looked muddy dirty that day and a fairly blue sky too.

Besides cropping, I added some fill flash to the foot pic post-processing. No sharpening. I liked them soft better.

These were all taken with my Canon XSi. I usually take BOTH cameras, the Canon S3 and XSi. The viewer is WAY better on the XSi in sunlight. Better quality goose feathers from the XSi. S3 is better at handheld great DOF--everything in focus and sharp. Typical point and shoot vs DSLR behavior, I guess. I'll probably always have BOTH types of cameras.

My next camera equipment purchase is probably going to be a
50mm f/1.4 lens for my XSi. I want to get creative with shallow DOF and learn how to work with such a thing.

Better build quality, better bokeh (background blur), better focusing than the cheapy 50mm f/1.8 lens.

After that purchase? Probably a shoe-mount flash.

NOTE:
Canada Geese.
"Canadian Geese" is incorrect, evidently.

Previous pics:
here
and
here

NOTE2:
Standing on one leg is typical resting posture of (some/all?) birds, evidently.
Golden's Birds of North America 1983 Ed., now 2001 Ed.
Page 108 Behaviour of Shorebirds:

9. Dunlin standing on one foot, a typical resting posture of shorebirds.

Signs of Autumn6

Canada Geese.
They are so abundant that I think some people consider them pests.

Geese are grazers, eating the soft shoots, leaves, and buds of various grasses, as well as cultivated crops and various meadow plants (Northwoods Companion), thus hanging out in that corn field.

NOTE:
Canada Geese.
"Canadian Geese" is incorrect, evidently.