Two days ago, while trying to read the Sunday paper, I was distracted by a pair of extremely irritated geese. Honking loudly, and “goose-stepping” around the neighborhood, they were apparently trying to let everyone know – especially another pair of geese who also happened to be in the neighborhood – that this was their territory. To better make their point, they flew up onto a nearby roof (you don’t often see geese on rooftops) and got even louder. They must have won the battle because I haven’t seen the other geese since, although I suppose that conclusion could be up for debate since geese usually don’t wear name tags and one goose looks very much like another. To me, at least. I can’t even tell a male from a female.
When all the ruckus started I was reading an article about a bunch of ATV’ers in Blanding, Utah who were trying to make a territorial claim in much the same way as the geese. That is, by making some serious noise (literally) and doing a lot of strutting around. In case you’re unaware of the story, these guys are trying to get a federal rule – a rule that says they can’t take ATV’s into a place called Recapture Canyon – overturned. Since 2007, only hikers and bicyclists have been allowed to use the trails in and out of the canyon. The reason for the anti-ATV rule is simple: when these folks built a new ATV trail in the area in 2007 (without permission, by the way) they caused a considerable amount of damage (about $300,000 worth). Given that the canyon contains Native American ruins and burial grounds, the BLM said “no more motorized vehicles”. Local Indian tribes are also obviously opposed to allowing ATV’s back into the canyon.
Anyway, the symbolic connection between the honking, goose-stepping geese and the guys with the ATV’s didn’t escape me. The main difference between the geese and the ATV folks is that the geese weren’t carrying any guns. Otherwise, they were pretty much indistinguishable. Oh, and the geese didn’t have the son of Cliven Bundy “leading” them. I guess the Bundy’s had too many other public appearance commitments that day. Just what we needed – another damned clown show…………
On a more photographic note, this picture was taken using my 75 – 300mm “long” lens. Using an aperture of f/8, my exposure was between 1/500 sec. and 1/750 sec. Certainly fast enough for the focal length I was using (which was equivalent to about 550mm in full-frame terms). Having used this lens enough to know that I might not get complete sharpness in every frame, I fired off about 2 dozen shots. This was the only one that I thought was sharp enough. And it happened to be the best with respect to composition: the eyes of each goose are clear, their necks are roughly parallel, and the front goose actually appears to be marching. You can also actually see the tongue of the first goose. He really does look pissed off.
As an afterthought, I considered “photoshopping” a couple of AR-15 assault rifles onto the backs of these feathered warriors. But then I figured that it might give the local NRA branch some dangerous ideas. They might decide that if brainless people can carry weapons openly, then why not brainless critters? I mean, fair’s fair, right?
Filed under: Critters, Dumb and Dumber, Politics and Other Nonsense, The Human Condition
