Two hunch-shouldered herons stood in the shallow waters of Weed Lake.
The light was dim and still pre-dawn blue but I stopped for a few seconds to knock off a picture anyway. I was on my way to look for birds on the prairie sloughs and ponds further east but, since it’s early days for the fall migration, I figured I’d better grab what I could.
Two blue herons, a few gulls, soft blue light, not a bad way to start the day.
There are several big, shallow bodies of water due east from the city starting with Weed Lake here by Langdon, Eagle Lake south of Strathmore and Namaka Lake a little bit south from there. They are all large bodies of water surrounded by grain and hay fields, perfect places for ducks and geese migrating from the north to stop and feast on their way toward the Gulf of Mexico.
We’re a ways off the main flow of the Central Flyway so we don’t get the really huge flocks like they do in Saskatchewan, but there are plenty of birds that pass through the farmland out east. Pintails, mallards, swans, all of them wing their way by at various times in the fall. Most numerous, though, are the geese. Canada geese, of course, are around here all year. They stay because the Bow River doesn’t generally freeze solid in the winter so they have a safe area to roost and there’s plenty to eat in the farm fields close by. But big flocks of their more migratory cousins come through at this time of year.
With them, though usually a little later, come the snow geese. They are unmistakable with their white feathers and an amazing sight to see.
But the prettiest of all of them — in my opinion, at least — are the white-fronted geese.
Chocolate and cream with bright orange feet and a white mask, they often mix with snow geese on the southward trek. They’re not quite as big as the snow geese — and maybe half the size of a Canada — but they are handsome birds whether on the ground or in the air.
And I was hoping I’d find some as I drove eastward into the sunrise.
The clouds that kept the morning light soft hinted that a chinook was about to roll in but the air remained cool and still. Stopping to photograph a young pheasant walking on a fence south of Strathmore, I could hear the hum of traffic coming from the big highway to the north and the chirp and chatter of sparrows and starlings closer by. South of Eagle Lake, an irrigation stream flowed between banks of neon-green grass while hawkweed and alfalfa blossoms glowed in the soft light.
I still hadn’t seen much for birds, though. The south shore of Eagle Lake was barren, just a few coots and mallards. Same with the north side of Namaka Lake. Plenty of autumn-brown cattails but only a few birds.
But at the head of that irrigation ditch there was a pair of sloughs. Not likely I’d find geese there but ducks, maybe.
There were ducks, local nesters like teal and gadwalls, a few mallards and even a couple of wigeons. Gulls, too. There was a pair of feedlots, one north, one south, and the slough was a perfect spot for the gulls to rest after feeding among the cattle.
So I aimed my camera at them and as I did, over the roar of the feedlot’s mill, I heard geese. Not the braying honks of Canada geese but the peeping chirps of the smaller geese. Looking up toward the approaching sound, I saw them, a ragged skein of dark birds against the bright clouds.
White-fronted geese.
I swung my lens toward them but they were lost against the sky and it was only by their cries that I finally found them again far off over another slough to the south. Behind them, a small flock of Canada geese followed by a swift flight of mallards coming from the opposite direction.
OK, birds. Time to go check out that big slough.
The sound of trucks and trains going by nearly drowned them out but I could see little specks on the water that had to be geese. But even if they weren’t, it was a gorgeous scene anyway. The sun was beginning to break through and bright light was hitting the mountain peaks to the east while the slough lay like a splash of silver, unruffled in the still air.
But as I drove around the east end of the slough and saw it from a different angle I could see there were indeed birds on the water. And, as it turned out, on the field beside it, too.
There were a couple hundred white-fronted geese grazing on the green growing up among the harvested windrows and through my long lens I could see their soft colours. In addition to the orange feet, some had orange bills. Others had pink ones. Their combined calls made me think of giggling children.
In fact, their combined calls sounded way too loud for as few birds as I could see so I kept on driving around the slough. On the south side, I found more of them foraging in the fields along with Canada geese and mallards. It was a tough place to stop, though, being on the pavement with semis hammering by, so I headed to the next intersection to try another angle.
And as I looked to my left to check for traffic, I saw the main source of the sound.
There were at least a thousand geese right beside me, nearly all white-fronted with a few snow geese among them as well. Pulling over as far as I could and turning on my four-way flashers, I aimed my camera out the window to try for a picture.
Geese everywhere. From this angle I could see they were organized into smaller groups, some poking their beaks into the stubble, others keeping watch. They seemed completely unconcerned by either me or the truck traffic on the highway beside them and ignored a freight train coming by on the tracks to the south.
Until it blew its horn.
Then, in a blizzard of wings and a rain of digested grain, the ones closer to the tracks exploded into the air and wheeled around over the rest of the flock. But just for a minute or so when they landed a bit further out in the field.
OK, I thought, if there are geese here, maybe there are more a bit further on. As it turns out, no, there weren’t. Ring-billed gulls, yes. Ravens by the dozen. Bald eagles, too. Three in one tree, two in another and a fifth off by itself on a dead poplar.
By now I’d spent an hour blasting off pictures. And enjoying every second of it. But Stobart Lake was just down the road on the Siksika Nation and I was curious if there would be more geese there. So I left these geese behind and went for a look.
There was one big flock far out on the lake, way too far for pictures, so I kept on going east to see what else I could find. And just east of Gleichen, I found some more.
On a tiny pond right beside busy Highway 1 — and I mean right beside! — a couple hundred white-fronted geese sat watching the cars zoom by. Across the highway, on a hay field, a couple hundred more plucked at the alfalfa. Amazing to see them so close but a truly dangerous spot to stop. I quickly popped off a couple pictures and moved on.
Wonderful! I’d now found two big flocks around small bodies of water. Bassano and Crawling Valley Reservoir were just a half-hour further on. Surely there would be more birds there.
At Crawling Valley, though, all I found was a pair of young red-necked grebes hunting by the dam and some skittish goldeneyes. But there was a bonus.
Hundreds of meadowlarks thronged the grasslands around the reservoir and their music filled the air. They perched on fenceposts and hunted along the ditches, singing as they went. Brewers blackbirds, cowbirds and starlings formed big, wheeling flocks that dove among the grazing cattle.
At Snake Lake, not far away by Lathom, there were little groups of yellow-legs wading in the shallows while killdeers hunted the shoreline. And there were geese, too, not on the main lake but in the small sloughs beside it. There were more snow geese here but some white-fronted as well. Flocks of them flew overhead but they weren’t as concentrated as they had been back by Carseland.
So I headed back that direction, stopping for anything else that caught my eye as I went.
Near Bassano, there was a fence line hosting dozens of clumps of wild asparagus, the feathery leaves all bright yellow and green with red berries that caught the faint sun. By Cluny, a lone tree lined up nicely with the streaking clouds overhead.
From a hilltop between Gleichen and Stobart, I aimed my camera down toward a freight train rolling across the grasslands of the Siksika Nation and past the little community of Muskrat. I could just make out the mountains in the far distance through the haze.
The geese were still where I had left them but now they were milling around a lot more, maybe because a combine was chewing its way through the swathed barley the geese had been feeding on in the morning. Or maybe they were just restless to be on their way south. Contrasting them, on a pond a little further west, a handful of Canada geese idled the warm afternoon away, seemingly in no rush to do anything. Over the hill, starlings perched on the vanes of an old windmill. Local residents, they won’t be going anywhere.
The geese will be, though, and maybe soon. But, hopefully, these were just the first wave of the migrants coming through. According to what I’ve read, there are over a million white-fronted geese in North America and many times that number of snow geese. These ones might move on but I’m pretty sure there will be more to come.
There are wild geese on the way.
And I’m more than ready to chase them.
