Wednesday

Finding out about the snow geese was not easy, but I came upon a Facebook group where eventually the above information was posted.

We did not immediately jump in the car and go rushing off as we well might, had it been a shorter drive. After all, surely the geese would stay awhile. And over the few days more flocks would arrive. Wouldn’t they?

Consulting the long-range forecast and settled on Wednesday which promised to be fine.

This gave us time to plan, to organise…

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To buy a thermos! Grant went into the local hardware store and came out clutching the above which of course immediately made a hit with me. I’ve seen Yeti products in stores but never had an excuse to purchase one before. They are not cheap. But this is a very superior flask.

Refreshments were not essential, but Wednesday would be long and likely a bit chilly. To that end the man fussed about warm clothing, insisting I must dig out heavy socks and find a hood for my jacket. Cold weather does get into my bones, so it would be helpful to dress suitably, but it was hardly like we were going to the Arctic. As it happens I still have the lined jeans I bought in 1986 for a trip to Tibet where it was certainly cold as that was also in November.

Nice to have a chance to use them again after all this time!

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As expected, Wednesday dawned clear and bright. Our morning routines quickly concluded, we laid down dishes of food for our little darlings, assuring them we would be home long before supper, then we jumped in the car and set off…

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Last time we made this trip, we took route 22 which runs along the shore of Lake Champlain. It is very pleasant, but being a state route rather than a freeway, it is very much slower, so on Wednesday we decided to use Interstate 87 again.

This time the high elevations were lightly snow-covered.

Which made them seem more like mountains!

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Further north a little snow still lingered on the shoulders and trees were encased in frost despite bright sunlight, so the scenery was quite different.

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There was another difference. Despite very light traffic, police vehicles were dotted over almost the entire length of our passage along I-87, although they seemed only to be concerned with stopping the few tractor-trailers we saw.

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In the area of Plattsburgh, a few dainty clouds drifted across the sky where there was a noticeable lack of – flocks of geese.

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Methinks 9 does not constitute a flock!

Minutes later we did see a much larger formation, but they were flying in totally the wrong direction, which is to say away from where we were headed.

This close to the lake, we’d hoped to see geese in the sky and in the fields, maybe not in huge numbers but certainly some! At least that handful that had been spotted days ago.

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Here we were. So where were they? Maybe in another bay.

But the silence was shattering and one thing I do know about geese is that you can hear them from a long way off.

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Surely we’d not come all this way to see three mallards?

No, no. There was this handsome merganser as well.

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So we went to stare at the lake. And that strange cloud.

Very peaceful. And very empty.

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Consulting the map on my phone, we decided to drive down to Cumberland Bay State Park which was a few miles south

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There we sat eating our lunch while watching a dog romp on the beach as a very small group of Canada geese bobbed just off shore.

Far in the distance, way beyond the reach of my telephoto lens, a much larger flock of geese rode the swell, but even with his binoculars, Grant couldn’t tell what sort they were. A very mild breeze carried faint hints of their chatter to confirm we hadn’t imagined the sighting.

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There was nothing for it but to set off for home. Grant was particularly put out, having driven all this way three times now. Since then we’ve been told that the geese were there earlier but have now mostly left, although someone else saw a large flock guess when? Wednesday.

We also discovered that the second largest gatherings of snow geese in the USA occur in Skagit Valley which is an easy drive from where we lived in Washington, if you discount Seattle traffic. Skagit is famous for tulips and we’d both been there to see those, yet we’d never heard about the geese.

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