For the past month I have been visiting a little pond just up the road from my place hoping to get photos of geese and their chicks.

I have been going there with my camera equipped with long-lenses for years. Some times have been great with lots of geese near the road, like there were last year, but all to often they were too far away.

Last June the hill across from the pond was covered with geese. I am pretty sure that would be called a gaggle. (I have also heard people refer to a group of photographers as gaggle) Parents and goslings were everywhere and really didn’t mind my car after I parked and sat quietly for a few minutes.

This year I made trip after trip in the morning, at noon, then in late afternoon and finally evenings before I lost the light.

There are a lot of geese at the pond, but for some reason they are staying low to the pond and so far on the other side that even my 600mm lens isn’t doing them justice.

I wonder what caused them to stay such at such a distance this year. The road isn’t any busier than normal. They aren’t acting skittish, so I don’t think anything has been bothering them. Nevertheless, they are wild birds and I expect the first one there must have decided on a good spot and the rest nested nearby as they arrived. Good for them, disappointing for me.

I could have turned around each day and gone home for a beer, but the rural area I live in is filled with life in the spring. So instead I just moseyed along and keeping on the lookout along the roadside.

There are many old dilapidated buildings slowly dissolving into farmer’s back yards and I could have pointed my camera any of the many deer that are always munching grass in fields at anytime of the day. But, since I couldn’t photograph the geese I decided that deer and old buildings would be off my list and I should search for other wild things.

I wasn’t doing to well, and in frustration after my latest trip to the pond I chose a couple blackbirds and actually stopped to photograph a deer that peered out of the long grass as I passed. However, when my friend Jo stopped by, as I was about to leave on what I expected to be another fruitless trip, I invited her to join me on the drive.

Sometimes it’s a fresh pair of eyes that is needed. Each day I passed a neighbour’s slough. I had seen turtles there before, but like the geese, they were eluding me. I drove slowly and Jo looking out the window suddenly yelled, “stop, there’s turtles”! Sure enough the wily little critters were sunning themselves all along a half sunken moss covered tree in the swamp. There were seven of them near one end and three resting midway down.

I finally did reach out with my long lens to photograph the distant geese, and I captured a couple shots of blackbirds, and there was that deer hiding in the ditch. I was bound to my goal of photographing anything wild, and have been keeping at that for days, but I wasn’t all that happy and maybe a bit bored with my subjects.

However, the septet of turtles changed that. I was pleased to have turtles for my subjects, so for this week the photograph of the turtles will have to do.