Flocks of snow geese

On Saturday, when we were driving around lost in the northeast corner of North Carolina, on the flat coastal plain, we kept seeing huge flocks of white birds in the distance, out over the wide farm fields along the edge of the road. They were veritable swarms or clouds of birds, swooping and turning as they flew so that the sunlight reflected off their wings and bodies to great visual effect. The flocks seemed to disappear and reappear without warning.

We were driving along a straight road with no other traffic on it and with a wide treeless shoulder when we spotted a large group of white birds sitting in a field. I was able to pull the car off the road and get out to take a few photos.

The birds were obviously geese, and a search on the Internet tells me they were white snow geese that migrate northward in springtime to get to their breeding grounds in northern Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. The North Carolina Outer Banks and coastal plain are under their flyway.

As you can see, my "old" Lumix camera does a pretty good job of zooming and then focusing on distant subjects. I've had it since 2012. Now I've ordered a newer model Lumix (called the ZS30 in the U.S. and the TZ40 in Europe) with an even longer zoom lens. It's waiting for me in Saint-Aignan, where I will be returning on Tuesday.

Both the old and new Lumix cameras have a long zoom and a really wide wide-angle lens. I hope I'll be as happy with the new one as I have been with the one I'm leaving behind in North Carolina. Don't forget that you can click or tap on the images in this post to display them at full size.