There was a big overflight of geese tonight. They came in waves, sub-flocks of 20-30 at a time (I count 22 in this particular group). Wherever the destination, they were leaving for somewhere else. There’s something a little melancholy about it all — the first intimations of autumn.
Goose couples like these are pairing up around the valley’s watercourses. Doubtless within a couple of months these two will be shepherding around little balls of golden fluff that, within a reasonably short space of time, will turn into hissing, crapping brutes just like their parents. But I guess that’s what human parents do too, right?
These geese literally live in the car park of the Co-op supermarket in Hebden Bridge, and have done for some time. Today, the synchronous exercises: though Gertrude on the right has gone for the ‘tuck’ a little early.
This is certainly one of the bigger flocks of geese I have seen. I reckon there are upwards of 250 visible on this photo and I didn’t even get the head. How do they co-ordinate this? Who makes the decision to go at a particular time and place? What if one of them heads off and no one follows, does it get annoyed or feel like a bit of an idiot? So many things we do not know about the animal mind.
Rainbows are, technically, optical illusions, but they are illusions that the camera also sees. This one was definitely touching earth somewhere around the Old Lees Road/Hurst Road area of Hebden Bridge this afternoon. The geese wouldn’t have seen it though; they were flying in the opposite direction.
I am irresistibly reminded of a drag queen at Pride, or one of those amazing Brazilian samba women at the Notting Hill Carnival, posing for the camera in front of a line of stern grey coppers…. Happy Wednesday, little feller.
Let’s get on with another year, shall we? Three fowl (I assume, one duck, two geese) drifting by serenely on the Rochdale Canal is not any metaphor for life that I can think of, but it is a way of representing a peaceful (birth)day.
These geese were behaving just like a human family. The little ones dashed hither and thither while the parents tried to keep up, looking concerned. I like the way, on this shot, the parents seem to have merged into one, only the bizarrely extended neck of the one in the rear makes it properly visible. Amazing to think that the little balls of golden fluff will become just like Mom and Dad in a relatively short space of time.
Sometimes in my more romantic fantasies of downsizing I wonder what it would be like to live on one of the barges on the Rochdale Canal — but these thoughts never last all that long before I think of the music and movie collections. If I really wanted to do it I’d probably already be doing it. The immediate neighbours would be Canada geese, too.
The second day in a row to feature a pic of birds asserting their rights over human-designed territory. These geese had decided they were crossing the main road in Hebden Bridge this morning, and that’s just the way it was. In the end, the woman in the dungarees saw them safely to the other side.
Being 42 