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| It's not polite to stare London, ON March 2025 This photo originally shared on Instagram |
Most of them are Canadian geese, and they’re being their typically ornery, oh-so-un-Canadian selves, pecking at each other for no apparent reason, and hissing to reinforce their point - whatever that point may be.
Among the crowd is a single outlier, a brilliantly white domestic goose. She isn’t so much angry as she is stern, using her piercing stare to keep all the other geese in line. Even the tiny ducks mixing into the crowd seem afraid of her, and stand quietly beside the water, obediently waiting for her next move.
At one point she stops what she’s doing and looks directly into my soul. Perhaps it’s a warning, or a promise, and I’ll admit she kinda frightens me. So I rack off a few frames through my thankfully long lens before I decide no photo is worth the perpetual scorn of an obviously angry bird.
As I slowly walk back to the human-shaped world, I scan the photos on my screen and stop at this one. That stare. I can’t tell what she’s thinking, but I decide it doesn’t matter.
I’ll never know her mood or intention. But for a fleeting second on a muddy riverbank, we strangely connected. I looked into her world and she looked back into mine. We didn’t speak the same language, but I still felt like she was trying to say something to me.
As I put the camera back in its bag, I muse to myself that perhaps this moment has echoes for the human world, too. Maybe we should be looking for moments with those we know will never understand a word we say.
Indeed, maybe communication doesn’t simply involve words.
#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #springbank #bird #goose #flight #naturephotography #wildlifephotography #naturephotography #photography #nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography
Related:
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Geese aplenty, August 2023
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Your goose is cooked, October 2011
Duck, duck, goose! July 2010
Caption This 123, May 2009
Wounded bird, December 2006
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