An over abundance of geese.....

Saturday we drove to Henderson, KY to a slough refuge for birds that a friend of Mike's told him about. I had no idea what to expect, but had been told there were lots of water fowl and he had seen Tundra Swans. Sounded interesting!

After we found the place this was our first sight off to the right of the road.........these are not real....these are decoys (they fooled me...how embarrassing)! I have never seen a field full of decoys before! I would have loved to inspect them....they looked real! Hunting is allowed on this side of the road.

On the left side of the road, is the refuge and there are places to stop and climb up on platforms where you can look out over the field.
This field is full of REAL geese! 100's of them! (click on any photo to make it larger)

I decided to try to move closer across the field.....which I don't think I was suppose to do.
As I got fairly close.....they spooked and swarmed into the air! I was scared to death that I might have driven them into a hunter's range!

100's of geese

I'm not good at flight shots, but with this many in the air, I had to catch at least some!

My closest shot in the air

If you click on the photos, you can see more details. These 2 look different, but I think they are both Greater White-Fronted Geese.

We drove a little further and found a spot where the corn field is flooded and the geese and Mallard ducks were swimming.

Again....the are the White-Fronted Geese (a new species for me!)

The white on their faces was easy to see even without the camera or binoculars.

The water stretched a long ways and I could see white birds at the other end. We tried to drive closer and then when the car was sort of bottoming out, I got out to try to walk very slowly that way.

You can't see them, but the corn is full of geese!

Once again, I caused a major flight to happen! Suddenly the sky was full of white Snow Geese as well as the White-Fronted Geese! I have never seen anything like this and both species are new to me! Wow!

I just kept snapping photos and hoping for the best.

100's of white geese!

Driving down the road a bit more and the corn was mowed in rows between the standing sections. At the end of each mowed sections you could see the white geese! This is about how far away they are. I'm standing across the road looking down the field.

I tried to zoom as much as I could (I should run home and unwrap my new camera!)

They aren't great shots, but you get the idea!

I just couldn't get over how many geese there were and of 2 types I had never seen before! There were also Canadas mixed in and some Mallards. As far as I know I did not see any swans.

Sitting and flying

Lots of geese! Overload of geese!

This very small group of birds, I can not identify. They do not have the black wingtips of the other white ones. Could they be the swans?
I told Mike to tell Chris that this was the best Christmas present I could get! What a magical day!