Geese...lots and lots of geese

Click on the photos to enlarge them, especially the one above!

I spent a large part of this weekend standing in a field on Hwy. 3 near Satartia watching one of the greatest spectacles I have ever witnessed — the great geese migration. Have you ever seen a "V" of geese fly overhead and they are honking? Multiply that by hundreds and hundreds of them flying over, so many you can't even count them, so many that your head starts hurting from craning your neck at the sky for so long. Wave after wave after wave of them flew overhead and many thousands of them landed in the field where I was to feed and rest for the night. There were so many geese flying in, it looked like gray clouds descending to the ground. The noise is loud. At one time, the geese started flying around in a circle and the only description that does it justice is to describe it is as a goose tornado. I was so awestruck I didn't even get a photo because I was mesmerized by the sight. I happened to look up at one time and saw the moon and took several photos of the geese flying underneath it. The moon is in focus and the geese are not, since I just focused on it and let the geese enter the photo from every direction. I could have taken hundreds of photos, there were so many flying past the moon, but it was directly overhead and I tired quickly hefting my telephoto lens into the air.

The photos you see here were taken Saturday afternoon just before and during dusk. I went back Sunday morning and spent more time as the geese started taking off and continuing their journey. The sky was filled with geese again as those that bedded down farther north flew by.

I ventured back Monday and got some more shots of them in another field near the highway.

I'll be running more photos this week of this. Pictures, however, cannot do the scene justice, because in person it is a jaw-dropper. A sight such as this may just make me take up videography.