Dead Creek, Vermont

Sunday, October 19, 2008 by Clint.

The Wild Life Management Area in Dead Creek, VT is home to thousands of Snow Geese for the months of October and November as they stop over on their way south. It is truly an incredible site to behold so many of these large beautiful birds. People come from all around to get a chance to see them. It is about a 3 hour drive from our house and we decided to take the trip yesterday. It was a gorgeous drive through all the fall foliage of the Adirondacks and Vermont.

From the top of Mount Philo (Vermont) the view is incredible - the hills and farmlands are covered in a blanket of color.

When we first arrived at Dead Creek the Geese were quite far away at the end of many acres of cultivated fields. Corn is grown on the land to attract the geese and give them sustenance on their long migration. Occasionally they would rise up in a large cloud of wings.

We hung around for awhile and decided to go explore and come back later in the evening - that turned out to be a wonderful idea and stroke of luck. We hiked around a bit and when we came back to Dead Creek about an hour before sunset many of the geese had moved closer to the accessible end of the field and more continued to fly in all the time. One woman beside me, obviously a regular visitor, mentioned it was the best view she had ever had of the geese.

I felt really fortunate to have them flying close enough to get some good flight shots.

One flew close enough for me to get a nice portrait of her/him in flight:

As the sun continued to set the lighting became a beautiful golden pink color. The geese continued to fly in to join the hundreds or thousands already in the corn field.

It quickly became too dark to take any more pictures and we started back home after a very successful day at Dead Creek.

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