Late Winter to Early Spring 2013

From South Shore Drive, looking north (early March)

Aldo Leopold writes of the returning geese in A Sand County Almanac (1949):

A March morning is only as drab as he who walks in it without a glance skyward, ear cocked for geese.  I once knew an educated lady, banded by Phi Beta Kappa, who told me that she had never heard or seen the geese that twice a year proclaim the revolving seasons to her well-insulated roof.  Is education possibly a process of trading awareness for things of lesser worth?  The goose who trades his is soon a pile of feathers.

From Lakeside Rd., looking west (early April)

A cardinal, whistling spring to a thaw but later finding himself mistaken, can retrieve his error by resuming his winter silence.  A chipmunk, emerging for a sunbath but finding a blizzard, has only to go back to bed.  But a migrating goose, staking two hundred miles of black night on the chance of finding a hole in the lake, has no easy chance for retreat.  His arrival carries the conviction of a prophet who has burned his bridges.

[It's 5:49pm.  Thurs. Apr. 4, 2013.  Just heard geese.]

From the north shore, looking south (mid-April)

Although they have been shot at most of the winter, as attested by their buckshot-battered pinions, they know that the spring truce is now in effect.  They wind the oxbows of the river, cutting low over the now gunless points and islands, and gabbling to each sandbar as to a long-lost friend.

From the north shore, looking south (late April)

Finally, after a few pro-forma circlings of our marsh, they set wing and glide silently to the pond, black landing-gear lowered and rumps white against the far hill.  Once touching water, our newly arrived guests set up a honking and splashing that shakes the last thought of winter out of the brittle cattails.  Our geese are home again!

A Sand County Almanac [and Sketches Here and There], Aldo Leopold, illus. Charles W. Schwartz, Oxford University Press, New York, 1949, pp. 18-19.