Three geese walk up to a sandbar...

Preflight
London, ON
September 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

On an unseasonably warm September afternoon, I’m in the middle of a meandering bike ride through an unfamiliar neighbourhood when I come across this trio of Canadian Geese hanging out in a drainage pond.

The only camera I have on me is my smartphone, because stuffing an actual camera into a bike bag and then cycling the way I do - um, roughly - is probably not advisable for sensitive photographic equipment. I should have gotten the bike with suspension, I guess.

But they always say the best camera is always the one you have in your hand, so I park the bike and start composing with the iPhone.

To be charitable, “they” are spectacularly mistaken. The lens lacks reach, and I end up with this pixelated mess of a photo, and three angry birds who promptly swim away.

But I’m sharing it here, anyway, because I want it to serve as a memo of sorts to my future photographic self. I do that often, drop placeholder photos into the narrative to inspire myself for some future date when maybe the conditions will be better. Maybe I’ll have the right camera with me then. Or better lighting. Or I’ll be in a different frame of mind.

It’s a photographic game of Hansel and Gretel, except instead of finding my way home with a trail of food, I’ll be finding my way forward with a trail of really lousy pics.

But even a lousy photo tells a story - and keeps us on the path we were always meant to be on.

Now, there’s never a guarantee that we’ll even be gifted a tomorrow, so all of this is speculative at best. But it doesn’t hurt to leave little nuggets for the future, just in case.

Until then, the angry birds have time to figure out their next move.

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