Gaggles of Geese!!!

We used to have a little weekend place up on the big lake where, for several years, we'd go to "get away" for weekends and some vacations.  We had some great times there with amazing friends, but it was also a lot of work and sometimes fraught with peril (I'm not sure which was crazier - the weather or the neighbors!).  We sold it just before record lake levels and a stormy spring brought havoc to the south shore.  It was an emotional and a financial relief - but I still miss watching the water and the clouds.

Then I discovered LakeGuy14.  I have no idea who he is, but he has a webcam on the shoreline just a few miles down the way from our old place.  (The service is hosted on Wunderground; at one point they announced that they would be taking all the webcams down, and there was such a revolt that they immediately reversed the decision and I think they just upgraded a bunch of stuff as well!)  I like to visit the site throughout the day to see what the water is doing, how the weather is different, and what the lake levels look like.  

This morning I had a great shock - the water was covered with geese!!!  Hundreds of them!!  I've never seen anything like it.  Sure, once in a while there will be a kayak, or a boat moored on the beach, but never 8 million geese.  It was quite the spectacle!!

This afternoon as I was returning from getting the mail, I heard a roar of goose-honking off in the distance.  It started to get louder as they approached, and at one point it was so loud that I thought the squad of 8 million geese was headed right for the air space over my house.  It turns out there were only about 75 or so of them.  They must have been practicing - there were several excellent V formations, but there were also a couple of clumps.  Not sure if those were the geese teenagers exerting their new-found independence, or a few groups of slow learners.  They made quite the racket though!  I can only imagine the noise that big group must have made out on the open water!!

I also saw TWO pileated woodpeckers (having a great time flying all over the place together), a few red-bellies, and our hawk today!  The mammals are all still lying low, myself included.  There's some knitting going on, but nothing photo-worthy just yet.