SERENDIPITY PHOTO PROMPT 2015 – 20
26 August 2015: GEESE
It’s Frisbee Wednesday again. Time just scoots right past me and this summer has been a blur, a whoosh of color. Bright blue skies and puffy white clouds. Spider bites and boats. Green shade trees on the town common and the cool green waters of the river.
This is the 20th prompt I’ve done. I am having trouble accounting for at least 20 weeks of my life.
And today … it’s …
Goosey goosey gander,
Whither shall I wander?
Upstairs and downstairs
And in my lady’s chamber.
There I met an old man
Who wouldn’t say his prayers,
So I took him by his left leg
And threw him down the stairs.
Nursery Rhyme by Mother Goose
These were wild geese. They were willing to share space with us … as long as we didn’t get too close.
The geese were not afraid of us, nor were they tame. Not “office park” geese either. The geese who take up residence in parking lots will boldly go where no goose has gone before, are afraid of nothing. At least nothing human.
We did our best to be stealthy. No door slamming, driving into the parking lot slowly, quietly. No talking. Getting the cameras out in the car, then walking softly, getting as close as we could without making the birds nervous.
Having long zoom lenses on our cameras helped too.
And then. there was the day I encountered this goose. He pretty much posed for me, giving me his good side. Sidling right up to me, apparently wanting a handout.
Turned out, he was a domestic, pet goose from a nearby farm who just dropped by and wanted to be paid for his personal appearance.
As usual, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to pick one of my pictures or any of your own photographs and write about it. Directly, tangentially, sadly or with humor.
This message will self destruct in …
FIVE … FOUR … THREE … TWO … ONE … (long pause) …
Kaboom.
Oops, still here. Never mind.
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Categories: #animals, #Birds, #BlackstoneRiver, #gallery, #Photography, Nature
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
They do make a mess, but the goslings are just so cute! https://dailymusing57.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/serendipity-photo-prompt-geese/
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Here is my entry. Found a picture of geese and rest followedhttp://soulnspiritblog.com/2015/08/27/a-dialogue-with-geese/
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Great photos. Love the nursery rhyme. I used to always sing them to my children when they were little. They can’t have been that scary – they have both forgotten them. Or me reading them. But I agree, they are rather scary but very sexist so I am glad they have forgotten them
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My mother used to sing them to me, so the first way I learned them was as songs 🙂
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Well Marilyn, today’s prompt is a post about your book. Hope you don’t mind
https://nonsmokingladybug.wordpress.com/2015/08/26/the-12-foot-teepee-by-marilyn-armstrong/
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Not only don’t I mind, but I’m deeply flattered!
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Mother goose scares me.
But this blog post was niceee! 😀
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Mother Goose is pretty scary. Actually, nursery rhymes and fairy tales ARE scary. The Grimm Brothers are the worst! Glad you liked the pictures.
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“The Wild Geese” (1972/Sir Lew Grade Prod.) Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Roger Moore, Stewart Granger, David Ladd.
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Most of the really GOOD pictures are yours. Did you notice??
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So you have geese instead of monkeys…..lol
Beautiful pictures and geese are so well disciplined. Happy to pose for you. I think I have something similar to this. How about some more langurs? 😀
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I love your langurs. They are beautiful and we certainly have nothing like them — except maybe in zoos — anywhere in this country!!
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I almost finished writing a post for photo prompt and found that my internet connection was dead. A huge tree fell near the BSNL office and telephone connections were cut off for whole night. I have just logged in after coming back from school.
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Trees fall. We’ve had trees take out power lines too, many times. Glad you got reconnected.
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The geese do that stuff automatically. They are like a well-oiled military unit. People have written books about how the geese are organized. They are also very powerful flyers, and always in a V formation.
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Interesting ! Isn’t it ? Lucky you to closely watch their behaviour day in day out. Your valley is beautiful.
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It is beautiful and if we would get some more rain, it would be like it was. Even MORE beautiful. And fall is coming, when it is at its best!
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I know. Autumn is best season for your valley.
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I love your geese all in a row. That gray one is a beauty!!
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They are so organized. They fly in order, swim in order and march in rows. Apparently it’s in the DNA.
The gray one wanted to be fed 🙂 I recognized the symptoms! Beggars are beggars, regardless of species.
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Even though I live in a rural area and should know better, I thought your pictures were of some sort of long-necked duck 🙂
“Floats on water, has wings = duck.”
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Geese are much bigger, tougher, and they have sharp, pointy beaks that they will happily use on YOU. Strong birds. You don’t mess with the geese! I don’t think you have Canada geese over there. I know you have some kind of wild geese, but I think these guys are North America’s iconic water fowl. They live everywhere, from the arctic circle to South America.
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Beautiful post Marilyn 😀
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Thank you. Summer goes by so quickly.
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I agree, here in Spain we are also on this way, but still warm, where I live.
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Because Portland, OR is so close to Canada the geese migrate there right through our state. Trojan Park in Goble, OR is one of their favorite stops as it has a small fresh water lake in a relatively secluded area off Highway 30. You can visit there and see hundreds of Canadian and other geese headed North in October & November. As you mentioned you must be quiet and approach carefully as they have guards posted to alert their flocks. I’ve gotten as many pictures of them by being stealthy myself. LOL
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They live here all year round, or did until recently. They used to migrate, but a lot of their southern east coast living especially Chesepeake, are built up, geese not welcome . I also suspect a lot of them died during the last two evil winters. We had both geese and a lot of swans (they never migrate) and now, you rarely see them. Our little drought has left a lot of rivers with no water, which means no fish, plants, or other food for the birds. I don’t know what has become of them. Seeing a flock like this used to be common. Now, it’s rare.
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😦
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I totally agree. This climate change is killing a lot of wildlife and if we don’t get a handle on it, it’s going to kill all of us.
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Hopefully by then I’ll already be dead! LOL
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That Mother Goose is rather violent, isn’t she? Hard on old men.
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Don’t mess with The Mother. She’s tough. Actually, if Mother Goose is violent, what can we call the Brothers Grimm …. other than really grim!
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Yes, they were well-named.
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