Swannabes.

I’m not going to write about today’s walk because it was abysmal. After enduring three days of ugly weather in the form of freezing rain, freezing fog, torrential rain, then still more fog and rain, I finally headed out around 1:30 p.m. today. The sun was out, but I had to look twice, because that bright spot in the sky looked familiar ... but the sun doesn’t come around here anymore, so I had to double-check. I packed up some peanuts and stuffed them in my coat pockets and headed out in the 60-degree temps. Nope, not a typo, it was almost tropical out there, and I do believe we got our long-awaited Indian Summer we’ve been clamoring for. I won’t dwell on the fact that our Indian Summer is only here for about twelve hours, then poof, it’s gone again.

Halfway down to the Park, that sun that looked so promising as I peered out the front door, suddenly disappeared and a gray cloud hovered ominously overhead. I said to myself “it sure looks like a snow sky, nah - too warm for snow, but don’t tell me it’s going to rain!” I no sooner got the words out of my mouth, when the sky opened up and it poured. I won’t repeat the words that I said that time, once it started pouring down on me, because I had no umbrella. The weatherman had said the rain was done for the daylight hours. I turned around and trudged home, with no pep in my step because I was already soaking wet, so what was a little more rain going to do to me? The sun appeared again, even though it was still raining, and, after I arrived home and dealt with all the wet clothes, the sun came out full strength once again. Did all that rain really happen or did I imagine it? The least I could have gotten was a nice rainbow for my troubles. Well, I was not going back out again. No sir, you fooled me once, I won’t get fooled again! I figured I’m chasing my goal, and I’ll make it ... but it will be Tuesday now to reach that goal.

However ...

A week ago today I had a delightful walk at Council Point Park. Even though it was a gray day and there was a chill in the air, all my favorite feathered and furry critters were there and I got a six-mile walk done. I’ve written about "Marsh Madness" and the mallards from last Sunday's trek, plus I teased you about an upcoming post about the Canada Geese whose honking ruled the skies, just before they skidded in for a landing on the surface of the Creek, scattering a mess of mallards and the cantankerous heron. Soon those geese regrouped and, though a few of them went hither and yon, there were seven geese that traveled in a semi-neat line down the Creek. It was a sight to behold and my photos don’t do that beautiful scene justice.

As soon as I saw these geese in the water, I was reminded of the holiday song “The Twelve Days of Christmas” and I was racking my brain trying to remember exactly what the geese were doing ... it gets trickier the closer it gets to the end of the song. So, who was a-swimmin’ and who was a’layin’? I had to consult my most-trusty source, Google, and it was “seven swans a-swimmin', six geese a-layin’” ... well I figured those geese just wished they were swans, thus they were seven swan wannabes and I made up my own word: “swannabes”.

I followed those swans from their point of entry in the water, all along the shoreline of the Creek, trying to get as many of them in the photo at a time. Some geese wanted to hug the shoreline and some drifted away from their leader, plus it was a wee bit tricky because the metal chain-link fence posts at the rear of the building across the Creek, kept casting a reflection on the water ... so how does on capture all seven geese within those wavy reflection lines? Well sometimes I had to compromise and get three in one shot, four in another shot. Those little rascals quit playing follow the leader and strayed away on their own. A couple of the geese had a little tiff as you see from the pink tongue a’waggin’. And one goose got very lost and away from the maddening crowd ... but eventually, you’ll see that they all regrouped and then headed toward the Detroit River.

It was a stunning lineup of Canada geese ... please enjoy my favorite pictures from this serene setting.

Please note ... I had captions for each picture, but can't do captions in this forum, so the pictures do show up in chronological order, but to see the captions, please visit my blog at: http://lindaschaubblog.net