Canada Geese have gotten so numerous in New England, all year around were there is enough food and some water they can keep open with their coming and going, and so tame in some locations, that, if you stand relatively still, they will feed within yards of you. These are big birds to have at your feet, but, except when defending young, they are the most peaceable of aquaintances…far less agressive, in fact, than your average barnyard goose. This specimen was on the grounds of the Grange Insurance Audubon Center in Columbus Ohio. I was there early yesterday for the Birding Optics and Gear Expo, while the promised sunny day was still well cloaked in clouds, the temperature was way too low in the steady wind, and the light was just barely adequate for photography…but I could not resist a few close-ups of the feeding Geese when they offered to pose.

Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. 600mm equivalent. Shutter preferred. I had to crank the shutter speed down to 1/500th to keep the ISO within range (6400) at the maximum aperture of 6.7 on the zoom. Shooting off my bean-bag head monopod gave me a sharp shot…and with this amount of detail in the frame, the E-M10 did just fine at ISO 6400.

And for the Sunday Thought: The sound and the sight of huge skeins of Geese headed North used to be one of the joys of spring, one of the first signs of the changing season. With climate change, and, more significantly, changes in goose behavior and food availability in the winter, those skeins are pretty much a thing of the past in many parts of North America. The Geese, like the poor in Jesus’ parable, are, today, always with us. We can make a good thing of it, or a bad thing (especially as a sign of changing climate), and it has certainly changed the ecology of many New England lakes (and not, so far, for the better) but it is certainly a fact…a development…a major change in the way the natural world works that we have seen, those of us in our 60s, in our lifetime. And that has to be, no matter what we think about the causes, a bit disconcerting. There should have been something eternal in the skeins of Geese headed North in the spring, and, as it turns out, there wasn’t. Or maybe it is just that it is too easy for us brief creatures to confuse eternal with static…unchanging…when in reality whatever is truly eternal must change…certainly if we are talking eternal life. All that is living changes…and changes the living world. True whether we are talking Geese or humans…days or years or centuries. The difference is that we humans have the burden (and the priviledge) of thinking we can, or even that we have to, do something about it. We have the feeling that if we had only managed better the skeins of Geese would still stream North in spring. I am, honestly, not sure that the Geese would agree. But then, what do they know? (Or what do I know for that matter?) Questions. No answers. But that will have do to for this Happy Sunday!