Freezeout Lake Snow Goose Viewing Trip

Julie and I are just back from a round-trip to Freezeout Lake, MT –> Great Falls –> Helena and back to Missoula to photograph some of the beautiful Snow Geese that rest here each year on their migration route. 

We were greeted by many thousands of them on the lake when we arrived, most gently paddling in the water or walking on ice. After waiting for 30 or so minutes in the chilled air we were rewarded with a “take off” of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, taking off in a cascade across the lake. Like dominoes falling upward to the sky with a roar of flapping wings and honking, they took off, circled around in great swooping paths, and then broke out into smaller V-formations to take to the barley fields for dinner. It was a breathtaking experience to say the least.

In fact the pure auditory power of the take-off is so stunning that a group of seeing-impaired students were taken on a camp trip to experience it. Little did I know, before randomly running into her, that one of those students was my niece. Small world. A little reminder of the interconnectedness and yet more sheer serendipity within our world of causes and conditions (dependent origination). Here we are before Julie and I took a coffee-and-warm-up break and my precocious niece’s teacher caught up with her.

The Snow Geese: A Story of Home documents the journey of the Snow Geese. I haven’t read it, but might give it a gander (bad pun) after this weekend’s experience.

More Buddhisty stuff to come, I promise, including many, many more photos from the weekend with Rinpoche – press conference and party (reception/fund-raiser?).