Goose Photography - Roller Dam

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Sheryl invited me to go Eagle "shooting" - as in photography on Saturday morning with her and Meme. Let me add right now that this might be the LAST time I'm invited. G

Meme and I arrived at the Roller Dam first and we cruised around a bit looking for those beautiful Bald Eagles. Meme did spot one up in a tree and I offered to throw a snowball at it to get it to fly. Meme told me that wasn't PC. Gee, just trying to help. Not like I could throw that far anyway! Meme probably already KNEW this was a bad idea to bring me along, but she's way too PC to say so. G

We park by the geese and Meme starts to unload her camera. She also pulls out a half a loaf of bread, whole wheat! YUMMY!! She tells me it's for the birds. RATS! I ask if it's "good" and she said, yes. SCORE!! I haven't had breakfast yet and it's 10 am!

Sheryl arrives and we exit the vans and set up to "shoot". I take a couple bites of bread and Meme reminds me it's for the birds! FINE!! But the birds are WAY off to our left and quite honestly, I need some action! BH! Oh, wait...there's a cute little mallard drake looking for something to eat. Guess what! I can help! One bite for you, one bite for me. Another hairy eyeball from Meme. GEEZ!

This little drake is going to sink with as much bread as he's eating and I keep tossing into the water, but close to the bank to see if he'll come up. In the mean time, the geese have spotted something promising. Humans baring gifts!

Honestly, I'm the only one baring gifts, the other two have big cameras and know how to use them. My mission is to draw the unsuspecting birds in, so they can SHOOT (I mean photograph) them. I wonder if you need a license for this kind of thing??

It's working!!! They are coming closer! Meanwhile the little drake is holding his own among a couple dozen birds. The geese are becoming more confident and I'm able to toss the little bread pieces onto the bank and a few pop up out of the water. YIPPEE!! If I only had a clicker!!

So, now I'm going to ask a little more of my little friends, the geese. By this time I'm pretty sure Meme and Sheryl are no longer my friends. G So I start tossing bread closer and closer to Meme and Sheryl. Meme is sitting on the frozen ground I might add. Closer, closer!! I get one within 3' of Meme and toss a piece of bread into her hair. It slipped, HONEST!!! G She of course feels it and gives me a big hairy eye ball and a tongue lashing. Scares the goose, but not me. I'm pretty sure I can outrun her and since I haven't totally pissed Sheryl off yet, I can probably still get a ride home.

FINE! I'll leave Meme alone for awhile. I focus on Sheryl. Here goose goose goose, as I toss bread right behind her. Sheryl being the focused "HUNTER" (um, I mean photographer) that she is, doesn't seem to notice. I can get the goose within 3' and Sheryl looks behind her with a "HEY". RATS!! Foiled again.

Okay, I've messed with the geese about all I can now and it's starting to get boring. I have them too close for Meme to get any good shots. Boy, are they EVER happy??? NOT!!! Now they both wish the geese would fly. I of course offer to "run through them". NO!!! Honestly, where is the LOVE?? or the fun for that matter. You want action, I offer to give them some and they "shoot" me down.

A train goes by and gets some of the geese moving into the air. I'm out of bread and even the duck figures this out and heads out to the middle of the river. We've been out here for a good 90 minutes and they've taken hundreds of pictures of GEESE! So we head home just as the local new network is arriving. I was going to offer to run through the geese for them, but thought they'd probably say no as well.

It was fun, but it would have been more fun if we'd seen some eagles?
Maybe next time, if I get invited again that is.

I had to scrapbook some of their pictures.
Below are picture by both Sheryl and Meme.
They do a GREAT job!!