One of the lakes in the Wildlife Refuge, usually freezes over during the cold nights of early March. In previous years, we have always found Sandhill Cranes and Canada Geese in this lake, where they spend the night safe from predators. This year, we found the geese but no cranes. Perhaps the cranes found a better location following the gusty winds on the previous day. I decided to attempt captures of Canada Geese in flight during the early morning. In the image below, a pair of geese had just taken off. I like the way the geese are reflected from the ice as the fly above the ice.
In the following image, I captured a single goose taking off. Again, I like the reflection of the goose in the ice and also the two legs, hanging down, almost touching the ice!
Over the next hour or so, groups of Canada Geese left the frozen lake to head towards feeding areas in the wildlife refuge.
Sometimes I am lucky in capturing a goose that spread its wings. In this image, the rising sun lit up one side of the goose as the wings were spread out.
When several geese take of in a group, it is difficult to have all members of the group in focus. I had locked focus tracking on one goose as the whole group took flight so that I had one bird in focus while the others were out of focus.
In this final image, a group of six geese were all lined up adjacent to one another. This allowed me the have all of the birds in the group to be in sharp focus. I also like the background where we can see some of the snow on the mountains. Definitely an image from the mountains of Colorado!
