March 5: Vultures, geese

This morning was grey and cold after storms and rain last night. When I went out early in the morning, the damp wind had my fingers hurting within a couple of minutes. I don't know if the weather was responsible, but I saw something we rarely see near the house here: a group of vultures roosting in a tree.



There were seven or eight of them -- we call them turkey buzzards -- in the huge old oak tree across the dirt road from the driveway. They didn't move when I came out with my dog, and they hadn't moved when I returned with my camera. The only thing that budged them was a flock of long-necked geese flying over, low, honking a few times.



Speaking of geese, my dad came back from a trip to his office bearing photos of snow geese. He works near an open field with a pond where a lot of small groups of migrating fowl stop over. This is the first time we've seen snow geese -- they like the agricultural lands and wetlands further east, generally. These were in various stages of their white and blue phases. In other words, some were all white with black wingtips, others were mostly blue-grey with white heads, and some were in between.