Comment

Comment by William Briggs on December 31, 2012 at 12:09pm

I live near the Washita Wildlife Refuge in Clinton, Oklahoma. It seems half of the Canadian Honkers alive choose the lakes in this immediate area as their wintering grounds. We enjoy their arrival in the late autumn but by spring are more-than-glad to tell them goodbye.

My RV is within a quarter-mile of a small lake which is winter-home for hundreds of these geese. I never realized it before two winters ago, but these guys must never sleep at night! And my RV seems to be very near their preferred flight-path for take-offs and landings. I am awakened several times each night, during the season, as dozens or sometimes hundreds of these guys fly over not more than 100 feet above me, calling to each other.

It is one of those things you can either let aggravate you, or you can learn to appreciate the beauty. Most days (and nights) I am comforted at their calls to each other, which can be heard any time of day anywhere within miles of the area. This morning I was awakened five minutes before my alarm clock sounded, to what literally must have been 100 of these beauties taking off in flight, calling to each other in what must have been an attempt to organize their V-pattern, undoubtedly headed for one of the thousands of large wheat-fields in the area to spend a day grazing (and aggravating the poor wheat farmer almost to insanity!).

The nearby Washita National Wildlife Refuge is an interesting concept. When the Foss Reservoir was constructed, the north half of the lake was included in the wildlife refuge and the south half of the lake is in the State Park. A line of buoys separate the part of the lake given over to human enjoyment from the part of the lake dedicated solely for the use of wildlife. This lake, for me, illustrates how all lakes should be managed.

Comment by Val Busick on December 30, 2012 at 12:49pm

Those geese come to Oklahoma in the winter, don't ya know!