I have for the past several years toyed with the idea of extending my welfare family in the name of wildlife artist research with putting out cracked corn along the edge of my yard. I even had bought a sack but knowing that it can be quite a mess with Bird dropping had refrained for the past year in doing so. Yesterday morning Vicki went ahead and did so and within an hour we were inundated with Canadians and Mallards. I shot this pix from my front room window. At least I can get some pretty good shots of waterfowl.
7 comments:
One lone duck I see! These Canadian Geese are so very plentiful and do indeed leave those droppings everywhere. I always thought the geese and ducks flew south for the winters, but maybe not so much anymore. At least as far as the geese go...
Yeh Sherry. Seems like Geese stay around way more than they used to. 10 years ago we never saw any Geese in the Upper Wind River Valley. They have slowly moved in and last spring I counted over 50 laying around in my neighbors yard. [We have more brush and they don't feel as safe in my yard except now with the corn.:}]There is only 1 mallard hen in this pix but a few more minutes there were 6 mallards and 15 Geese.
Canadian geese are one of my favorite birds! Great pix!
Jo
Be careful what you wish for - those geese are LOUD birds - remember the line from the Sound of Music song "Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wing"! They will squabble and honk all night long!
They are interesting birds, very "family oriented." The males will chase off any other males during mating season; then when the babies are born daddy helps out. When they go for their first "swims" the male brings up the rear of the parade with mom in the lead - he will stick his head under water to check for turtles or any other predator. And they will allow a mallard to nest right next to them, but look out if another goose comes too close! We used to have more - maybe ours have moved west to Wyoming!!!
Hi, Gary. Perhaps you should put out a sign reading "Honk, for service". The Corn-adian geese seem to have adopted you. Great photo...and marvelous art you're working on. And, speaking of working...back to my Mountain goat for your wildlife challenge. Your challenge is noted and linked on my current blog.
Deb. i know how noisey those geese are. We have them this time of year always flying over beginning at first light but I have always been a morning person and delight in them as the perfect alarm clock. The really noisey ones are when the blackbirds first arrive and sit in the willows along the river and sing themselves into exhaustion. That will be any day now. We ahve no turles in this country but that is interesting.
James, I am sure I will have a great increase in honking. This morning there were no geeese or ducks on the river. A bald eagle flew by about 10:30 so maybe that is keeping them elsewheres.
How perfect! I should try putting some feed out in our backyard and see what it attracts. No - scratch that. I'm too scared too! What a neat photo though, Gary!
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