P.O. Box 218 ~ Ramsey, IL 62080 ~ phone: (618) 423-2411 ~ fax: (618) 423-2514

You have to be aware of other drivers at all times, any season. But at this time of year, you may pass a vehicle hugging the yellow line with the driver's neck strained at an odd angle watching flocks of geese. The state of Illinois has been beseiged by snow geese in recent years and these things fill the sky. We received a well-focused photo from Nelvin Wilson of a sky-full of whites over the weekend.

This scribe had the pleasure of getting out of the cave (the RN-J office) early last Wednesday - upon conclusion of the week's publication - to make a delivery to Vandalia. I took the scenic trip back: past Vandalia Lake dam and Vera, toward "coon hollow" (holler as we generally say it). Several flocks of snow geese were cavorting from field to field and with the sun behind me, they looked like aluminum confetti, flashing and fluttering in the wind. Much less organized than Canadian geese, snow geese do a lot of fluttering. Even with a resolve to fly a distance, their V's are constantly breaking down and and milling about.
Fortunately, the roadside was still fairly firm and there was no other traffic having to avoid me!

Sharon and I spent a day in Williamson County with daughter and son-in-law Williams. (No, he tells me the county was not named for him). Large gaggles of geese down there too.

We started noticing the huge swarms overhead last week just after daybreak. All moving to the northwest, suggesting that they are migrating back to summer breeding grounds on frozen tundra. But the daily swarms made us wonder. Do they return to our rivers and lakes each night? Or does each day bring a new swarm that wintered much farther south?

It was well after Christmas when we noticed snow geese had migrated in for the winter; actually beginning to think they would not even arrive this year. They are a very alert bird and hence have multiplied in numbers drastically, even forcing Canadian Geese out of prime habitat, say naturalists. Which is why you don't hear much good said for snow geese. Maybe they are smart too, delaying their migration to avoid our prime goose hunting seasons in autumn and early winter!?

Wilson's goose pix was accompanied by a zoom photo of eagles on a nest near Kaskaskia River, entitled: "They're Back!" Yes, a nesting pair of eagles raised young in a large tree behind Dean Hills last year. Also a year or two before that, we seem to recall. And they're back to try for another generation.

Sheredith Durbin watched five eagles (including a pair of juveniles) feeding on some kind of carcass in a field not far from his house last week in Carson township. That would be about two miles from the known nest and not even a warm up flight for the big birds.

In the opposite direction, Jeremy Marx's construction crew is working a job north of Vandalia Lake. They have seen up to six eagles feeding on a carcass in recent days. One juvenile was in that group.

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