Snow Showers and Geese at Sunset

     Sunset occurred about 5:40 PM on February 15, 2017 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  And about 5:10 that evening I started out to do a few errands around my home in New Holland.  It was a wild and pretty evening.  The sky was partly clear, with gray and pink clouds and the wind was strong and cold.  The pink clouds were caused by the setting sun shining on them.
     As I drove along to my first destination, a snow squall of flurries pushed through where I was and I could see distant landscapes here and there turning white with falling snow.  I decided to keep up with the snow squall I was in and chased it about five miles southeast across farmland outside New Holland.  But because of the squall's speed, traffic and red lights, I failed to keep up with the snow flurries.  However, I did see the snowfall cross a mile of cropland, climb over wooded hills and disappear beyond those hills.  So I turned around, faced the setting sun and started west, back to New Holland.   
     The sky was still amazingly beautiful, with patches of different colored clouds in the blue sky.  The wind whipping along and the sunset continued to give the landscape a wild look.
     As I approached New Holland, I noticed a few straggled, silhouetted groups of Canada geese following each other across the sky and into the sunset.  Those geese were flying into the wind and struggling with every wing beat of the way.  I thought those geese had a destination in mind, so I followed them with my car to see what they were going to do.
     About 5: 25, I noticed the goose flocks suddenly began to circle a harvested cornfield just east of New Holland, so I pulled into a business parking lot just west of that field.  From there I could see the geese still circling the field, without my having to peer into the sunshine.
     The different gatherings of Canada geese caught up with each other over the field and the whole mass was still swirling over it as the birds watched for potential danger.  Then they began to descend, into the wind for flight control, to the field, many of them honking noisily all the while.  As the geese parachuted down, little by little, they resembled a feathered waterfall that ended in a lake of corn stubble.  I estimated there were 150 geese in that congregation of them.          
     As those Canadas were dropping to the field, I could see another, smaller group coming from the east.  I estimated this gathering had about 50 individuals in it.  They, too, circled the field a few times, bugling all the while, then came down to it on the same aerial highway as the first group did.  The 200 Canada geese made a dark streak across the beige corn stubble as the birds fed on corn kernels lying in the field from last autumn's harvest.
     Those noisy Canada geese helped make a wild, exciting scene in human-dominated New Holland.  But that excitement came from more than just the geese.  The striking sky, foreboding clouds, sunset, cold wind, snow squalls and the flocks of geese in that beautiful environment together created a thrilling, memorable evening that I was fortunate to experience.
     Readers can experience such beauty and wildness, too.  Just get out wherever you are and look around with nature in mind.  You are bound to have thrilling natural experiences, too.