Like an oreo cookie. Ok, maybe not so much.

Scenes like this happened many times these 3 days. While making this account, I had to try and not use so many similar images for each day. So I am using this better example here on this page. While making a loop around the lake I got out to try and shoot an eagle flying over. As I did so I heard this go up behind me. It's a pretty awesome noise when they all go up.

If I had a dollar for every goose in this picture I could pay down a good chunk of my credit card. That is actually really sad.

That red square(or aprox) is shown in the next image at full size. Man I sure want to know how many are in something like that. But..........

Reminds me of the grocery store before a winter storm. Excuse me!

Meanwhile there are these two. These two encouraged a fair bit of wondering. They were right by the boardwalk, first standing on the ice together, completely by themselves, away from any groups. An eagle comes over, they hop in the water. Eagle continues on, they hook a right and come back to the ice and hang out together again. And just look at the water! That was all ice in the morning.

This was taken about the same time as the two ducks. I'd been talking to a couple shooters, from Illinois I think. The one had a Canon 1Ds and a 600mm attached to it. They sounded like they were going to come back in the morning and try for better light, as all these guys took off to eat right now. I told them about the crazy cold front(it was 60 here today around sunset.....24 hours later it would be about 10 here). I said it was supposed to be here around noon(according to the model!). Ooops. I look the next morning and it's plowing through there at day break. My bad. Models love to screw up arctic front speeds. Anyway, it was now 4 pm once again, and I was now really tired. All the snow geese gone, I figured may as well head home. I stop at the gas station near there and get some food and a pop. I come out and see a big plume of smoke back to the west, not terribly far away. I thought, hmmmm...that could be interesting with the sunset. So, I turned the GPS on and set out to find it. The whole way there I could see it dying fast. I was now west of the refuge, near the fields I saw geese in last year during the ice storm. I opted to look for that field since I was already back over there. I then find some by Big Lake. They were to my east, but I wanted them with the sun. I about drive over to that group, but then glance back to the southwest and see a massive flock low over the fields about 2 miles away. Sun was rapidly nearing the horizon though. To shoot from there or to try and get closer and maybe not get anything. Snapped a couple fast and took off. Raced around on this small one lane gravel/dirt deal which arced southwest, right into the sun. Literally could not see but a couple car lengths ahead of me thanks to the blinding sun.

I race the couple miles to them, get out and quickly snap away as they lift up again.

This is really fun, staring at the sun through a telephoto lens. Pretty soon I couldn't see the readings in my view finder. I'd have to quickly move my left eye over to it to see them. When I was done it was funny. If I closed my left eye, everything I looked at was pink. Close the right and I was fine. And hell, when I was shooting this, I was looking at an angle, trying not to look right at the sun. It was just really bright. Worth it I suppose though.

Guess one will have to keep an eye out for them on their way back. They are long gone now. Single digit highs tend to send them on their way. Here is a funny table from the Squaw Creek NWR web site showing the bird counts. http://www.fws.gov/midwest/SquawCreek/Waterfowl_Surveys.html See the 250,205 snow geese count from the 8th followed by the count on the 18th which shows 1.......ONE. Ok, yeah so they all left. I'm just wondering, what the hell is wrong with the one that stuck around, lol. Always one crazy one of the bunch, and evidently that's the one. The wind chill the day after my last day there was down around -30F. Probably would have been an interesting time lapse to watch that lake freeze over, if it got it done during the day like it thawed during the one day. Anyway, that count was just funny to me. Surely there is some story behind the one snow goose. Like maybe they keep it in the refuge building or something. Or perhaps it's just the counter/s. So cold and all, maybe they went out for the count and was like, hey there's one....ok, too cold now..lets go back. If they really did just go out and see some one crazy snow goose, I almost want to drive down to see that thing. Maybe it's like an abominable snow goose or something.