Goose Love, Assabet River national Wildlife Refuge, (c) DE Wolf 2021

After several days of rain, it was another beautiful day at the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge. There were, however, a large number of mosquitos out. I couldn’t be sure if they were trying to eat me or to mate with my hearing aids. Either way it was very annoying! The palm warblers eluded me in my attempts to photograph them. I was however, able to get the photograph of a pair of Canada geese (Branta canadensis) against a somewhat dreamy pastel background. I call it Goose Love, although since most of the actual mating pairs are currently being followed around by fuzzy goslings, I’m not really sure what we have here – perhaps a clustering of immature males. 

Canon T2i with EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens at 285 mm, ISO 1600 Aperture Priority AE mode 1/4000th sec at f/7.1 with no exposure compensation