A couple of weeks ago I was walking into a trout stream (here I go again) when I spotted an odd splotch of brown, white, and black on the opposite bank. I could not make it out — a dead raccoon? a sleeping badger? Neither seemed quite right and the latter sort of ridiculous. Later as I had worked back to that bank, I had my answer when a goose erupted off her nest. I had not known that geese flatten themselves on a nest when they feel threatened. Within the next week or so on two different streams I saw the same phenomena. In both cases, though, I instantly recognized what I was seeing.

Photo by Arlene Koziol