Photo Upgrade #1 for 2023. Hopefully one of many

 

Cackling Goose

 I had a fairly good day planned for this afternoon. I had to run an errand and go to Boost Mobile in Woonsocket because my phone was acting up. After that I was going to the Foxboro YMCA for a swim. Once done with my swim, I was going to Bass Pro Shops to get the one lure I actually need, Yellow Coachdog Roostertails. 

   As I was getting back in my car with a phone that now works in Woonsocket I got a rare bird alert. A Cackling Goose was at a ballfield in Ryan Park in North Kingstown. I've seen Cackling Geese before and I've gotten photos of them. None of the photos are very good. My best was at a pond in Middletown where these geese were pretty far away. I figured geese in a Little League field should be much closer.

  Woonsocket to North Kingstown seems like a long distance, but once I got on Rt 99, GPS told me that it was only a 24 minute drive. I may have gone over the speed limit, but so was everyone else on Route 295 and Rt  4.

   

   Once I got to the ballfields, there weren't many geese to sort through to find it. Cackling geese look like Canada Geese. The only difference is they are much smaller and their bill is much shorter and pointy. Sometimes the back is silvery, but the color pattern is the same as Canada Geese. They can be a tough ID. The wind was brutal despite the temperature being in the high forties. 

   I found what I thought was the Cackling so I called over to the other guy with binoculars that "I think I have it". The other guy was a birder I'm friends with named Chris Veale. He thought he had it too, and we had the same bird. The Cackling made the ID and photos very easy. Most of the time it was the goose closest to us in the flock. A few other birders showed up including another friend Allison O'Conner. We watched the goose for about 15 minutes. The majority of the flock left to swim in the pond across the street. We decided we weren't going to get any better photos. All we would have done was make the geese swim away from us ruining it for birders that showed up after we left. 

   

You can see how much smaller than the 
Canada Geese

While I was heading home, I got another alert that a Snow Goose was at a field in Lincoln. That bird was right on my ride home, so I figured why the hell not. When I pulled over, the Snow Goose was right next to the road. However, there was so much brush between the road and field, I couldn't get a photo from my car. As expected, the geese walked away from the road when I got out. It got a few photos from an opening in the brush. The geese moved fifty or sixty feet from me and started feeding again.  I left them alone despite Snow Goose probably being my favorite waterfowl.

 

Snow Goose

 I was three miles from DJ's mom's house so I called her up to see if I could go over and play with her three dogs. When I got there, I was surprised with a Christmas present. It was a nice sweatshirt. I was touched, and really appreciated the gesture and love the sweatshirt!

  So needless to say, swimming will have to wait until tomorrow and the Roostertails are still at Bass Pro.  It was well worth the delay. I had a great afternoon