Tag Archives: Water
Pond-Side…
A beautiful, little pond nestled in Bigfork…
Dragon Fly resting in the tall grass, his wings almost looked fake…
A fuzzy caterpillar hiding on a thistle…
A view clear across the pond to the mountains…
A Great Blue Heron landed for a few minutes…
A beautiful morning on the pond.
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Wild Bird Wednesday
The BIRD D’pot
Snow Geese at Freezeout Lake, Choteau, MT
On March 30, we were able to head over to Choteau, MT and watch the annual migration of the Snow geese. Â The weekends before it sounded like was their peak time but we were still able to watch some take off in the morning to go visit neighboring fields in search of grain. Â During it’s peak it sounds like they are well over 30,000 geese meeting at these ponds, on their way to breeding grounds.
There was an AMAZING sunrise that morning. Â The sky started to change color 45 minutes prior to the official sunrise time, the kids ohhed and ahhed the whole way to Freezeout Lake. Â At it’s peak it was splendid!!
Add some Snow geese to the sky…
My husband shot this of myself, a few of the littles and my oldest daughter, all of whom were taking pictures!
Cool Facts
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Snow Goose hunting in the eastern United States was stopped in 1916 because of low population levels. Hunting was allowed again in 1975 after populations had recovered. Since then, their populations have continued to grow, to the point that some areas of tundra nesting habitat are starting to suffer.
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The dark color of the blue morph Snow Goose is controlled by a single gene, with dark being partially dominant over white. If a pure dark goose mates with a white goose, the offspring will all be dark (possibly with white bellies). If two white geese mate, they have only white offspring. If two dark geese mate, they will have mostly dark offspring, but might have a few white ones too.
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Snow Geese chicks are well developed when they hatch, with open eyes and down-covered bodies that already show whether the adult will have white or dark plumage. Within a few days they are able to maintain a constant body temperature on their own. They grow very quickly, with the males outpacing the females.
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The creamy white eggs of Snow Geese stain easily. People can sometimes tell what order the eggs were laid in, just by the color of the shells (the dirtiest shells belong to the oldest eggs).
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In wintering and migrating flocks that are feeding, lookouts keep an eye out for eagles and other predators. Upon sighting a threat they call out to the rest of the flock, which may take flight.
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Snow Geese make epic journeys by air, but they are impressive on foot, too. Within the first three weeks of hatching, goslings may walk up to 50 miles with their parents from the nest to a more suitable brood-rearing area. Molting Snow Geese can outrun many predators.
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Females forage up to 18 hours a day once they arrive at breeding grounds, but eat little once they begin incubating the eggs.
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Food passes through the Snow Goose’s digestive tract in only an hour or two, generating 6 to 15 droppings per hour. The defecation rate is highest when a goose is grubbing for rhizomes, because such food is very high in fiber and the goose inevitably swallows mud.
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The oldest Snow Goose on record, shot in Texas in 1999, was 27 and a half.
Some of the other waterfowl we saw that morning…
Glass-like Conditions…
This past Sunday, my husband, parents, little Emmalynn and myself went up for to GNP for a couple of hours…
My parents and Ella, their dog…
It was the smoothest I have ever seen this lake…
Gorgeous Lake McDonald….
 
Emma and my husband…
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Winter Waterfall…
The Pier at Sunset…
Droplets and Ice…
Foggy, misty day with tree branches dripping water…
Though some of branches in the shade were still a bit frozen…
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Macro Monday
Today’s Flowers
Stormy Waters…
We had a bit of wind and rain on our trip, while we were at Ecola State Park…
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Turquoise….
These bighorn sheep are beside a naturally turquoise lake formed by glacial rock flour…
Blue, frozen glacial ice…
Got Milk?. . .
The beautiful turquoise color shown in the photo is the true color of the water. Sometimes called “glacial milk”, the unusual color is due to the presence of “rock flour”, which consists of tiny clay particles formed as rocks stuck to the bottom and sides of a glacier grind against bedrock. This abrasion reduces some of the bedrock to a fine powder that looks like the flour used to make bread. As the ice melts this rock flour is exposed and transported away by meltwater, often into a nearby tarn.
They won’t settle down! . . . .
Meltwater also transports pebbles, sand, and silt into the lake, but these larger rock particles quickly settle to the bottom of the lake. In contrast, the much smaller particles of rock flour remain suspended in the water until the fall when the meltwater stops flowing or the lake freezes over. Only then does the water become calm enough to let rock flour settle to the bottom. A core sample from the middle of the lake would probably reveal alternating layers of silt and clay called “varves”. . . . One layer of each (varve) for every year the lake has been in existence.
Why so blue? . . .
Sunlight includes many different wavelengths of light ranging from the longer “reds” to the shorter “violets” (ROYGBIV). A white T-shirt is white because it reflects all of the wavelengths, a black shirt is colorless because it absorbs all of the wavelengths, and a red shirt is red because it absorbs the OYGBIV and reflects the R (red wavelengths). Apparently the tiny particles of rock flour suspended in the lake are just the right size to reflect more of the blues and some of the greens than any of the other wavelengths.
Information from formontana.net
Visit here for more info…
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Vacation…
We are back after a 15 day vacation. Â My husband had a business meeting in Seattle so we (the whole family plus Grammy ~ 10 people in all) spent a couple of days hanging around there and then we crossed on the ferry and started our Highway 101 adventure! Â We toured through parts of Olympic National Park and then followed the coast down to San Francisco and then cut across California, Nevada and Idaho to make it back to Bozeman, MT just in time for my husband to have another business meeting then headed home. Â This is one of the thousands of pictures I took on our little trip and was taken in Olympic National Park….
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Dancing Aspens Farm Blog 