Canada Geese Sightings

I imagine the first thought of anyone gazing upon the title of this post who happens to reside in the Pacific Northwest or Canada will be something along the lines of, "Yeah, so? They're all over the place." What someone who mentally asks that question will most likely not know is that for someone who was raised in the desert city of Las Vegas, Nevada, such creatures are a extremely rare occurrence.

So, I hope my Pacific Northwest friends will forgive my naive excitement at seeing a large flock of these geese parked on the grassy lawns across from The Northern Light building (where I work) in Blaine a few days ago. I even took some time out of my day to run across the street and take some pictures of the numerous examples of Branta canadensis that had alighted near the amphitheater at Marine Park.

 I have to admit, taking the pictures was a quite a thrill. I recalled the hours and hours of watching the Discovery Channel as a child and tried my best to stay downwind of the geese. I got some pretty good shots, but I have no idea whether this was due to my wildlife photography skills or the birds' general apathy toward humans.

 After about half an hour and my left shoe sporting a smear of brand new goose poop, these are some of the shots I took. The rest of the album can be found here. 

This was one of the first shots I took. That's Canada in the far background.

This one was taken from the opposite direction as the first photo. The Northern Light building stands in the background.

This is what happened when I accidentally scared some of the flock away.

Part of what made this so exciting for me was how obvious it made the fact that my adoptive home of Bellingham is so very different from where I grew up. It's amazing how much of a difference a two-hour plane ride can make in this ecologically and geographically diverse nation of ours.