Its -5° and a strong southeast wind is blowing over the lake.  Ice had been forming along the shoreline of Sylvan Lake last night before the wind started to blow this morning.

The light was good so I grabbed my camera and headed down to the shoreline realizing I should have dressed considerably warmer. The wind cut through my jacket like a knife but it was too late to turn back now.

My lens of choice this morning was a 50-200mm (2.8-3.5). With the high wind I set the camera on shutter priority and boosted the ISO to 200.

I heard the Canada geese so I thought I might gather a few images before they headed out for their morning feed.

Arriving at what I thought would be a good location I had to move in low and slow.  Do you know what it is like crawling across the frost covered frozen ground just to be close enough to take a photograph of a Canada goose.  Exciting!

The Canada geese are somewhat difficult to photograph after they have been shot at by hunters all fall.  The geese have a watchful eye and spook to the safety of the air very quickly, even if suspicious of trouble.  Most of the geese have their heads tucked back so some of them are probably sleeping along the ice covered shoreline. A few sentinels keep a lookout for danger. I think those geese sleep with one eye open.

After crawling around on the icy ground for a while I couldn’t feel my hands and my legs were aching from the cold.  Although being cold, I was capturing some nice images and yes I was still having fun.  There were about 200 geese stretched out along the shoreline.  Then all at once they started to become restless with their heads popping up and the vocalizing increasing.  I know they hadn’t seen me so I was wondering what had spooked them. Then an old black raven drifted over.  But as the raven passed the geese startled and took to the air.  I wasn’t ready for this.

The noise was deafening and there were geese everywhere.  I was in the midst of flock shooting when I spotted a bald eagle circling high overhead looking for a meal of cold goose.  He was the culprit that spooked the geese from their slumber.  The eagle was too far away to take a nice photograph but I took a few images of the eagle just the same.

Wildlife photography is so dynamic that from one minute to the next you will have a whole new set of images.  With the geese this morning it went from geese sleeping on the ice to a cluster of birds in the air.

After spending over an hour by the shoreline my hands were just about numb not to mention the rest of my body.  The geese had begun to return to the shoreline after the disruption with the bald eagle. I noticed my battery meter blinking so I suspect the cold has also affected the battery.  So that signals time to get up off the frozen ground and begrudgingly head for home.

I left the geese as I found them, all huddled together facing the cold November wind and dreaming of warmer places.

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