For Real Toads: the Isle of Skye

Yesterday, Kerry presented a pictorial prompt for the writers' group Imaginary Garden with Real Toads. She offered as inspiration a photo, a painting, and also prose by the artist Ken Simm, featuring Whooper Swans on the beautiful Isle of Skye in Scotland.
It is my great hope to visit Skye one day, but, in the meantime, I do have photos of Canada Geese taken here in southern Alberta by my own intrepid photographer, my husband, Richard Schear.

To accompany these Canada Geese on their journey, I have chosen to work (approximately) within the format of the Skye Boat Song, which is (as are many poems and songs in Scotland) about Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Alberta Bird Song

*

Speed, bonny bird, like a boat on the wave,

Onward! the lead goose cries,

Fly, bonnie bird, O Canada’s pride

On through the nighttime skies.

Dark the clouds roll, loud thunder roars,

Lightning bolts streak the night

Baffled, we wonder how the geese know

Which direction is right.

Our World Tuesday: a few days in our world

Above, the full moon in a sky of deep blue velvet.
November 10, 2011



Left, the moon trying to hide its light behind a tree.
November 11, 2011

Dick and Lindy pretty much stick to the red shale walking paths when they go out, but on November 13 this mountain-biker was riding on a trail carved on the side of the coulee slope by generations of deer, antelope and other wildlife. In the photo below, you can see the animals don't always make the trail very wide.

A rather raggedy skein of geese fly overhead, Nov. 13.

On November 14, the prairie seems to stretch into the distance forever.

A flock of pigeons imitating a skein of geese, Nov. 14.

Posted for

Our World Tuesday,

a second-generation meme

in memory of Klaus Peter, founder of My World Tuesday.

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Swan song

Encouraged by the swans' reaction to a recent serenade by French horns, my friend Paulette (R), and her friend Jennifer (L), used their violins to sweet-talk the swans on Jennifer's dad's pond. When the women and their violins left, I heard this nesting pair trumpet loudly. It seemed to me they were calling the musicians to return. Perhaps there is a clue in the word "trumpet" -- used to name a musical instrument as well as the call of the swan.

In the same pond, I saw a pair of Canada geese, as well as a pair of ducks followed by their half-grown ducklings.