Geese are on the move

Yesterday was a crystal blue day.  I was lucky to be visiting friends on the bay side, and as we talked, I watched threads of dark geese moving on the distant water.  Thin lines would lift and float, break up and return to the water in smaller groups.  Some would fly higher, black pencil sketches against the blue water and far green shore.  Ragged groups would fly, dip, fly.  Restless, readying for the flight  back north to breed.  These are Brant, dapper little sea geese that are rarely found inland.  They feed on aquatic plants found in the near-inland waters and avoid the shore.
They seem sensitive to disturbance on land and rest in huge floating rafts out in the bay.  In May, the last of the migrants will leave us for their breeding ground, as far north as the islands off Alaska.
But for the time being,  they are a beautiful sight and sound on the water for us land bound beings to enjoy.
Farther south, other geese are moving.  At Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, in far southeastern Oregon and a Disneyland for birding, the Ross's geese and Snow geese are massing.  In the flat distance, they look like snow fields, vast white, undulating masses of them.  But you know they're full of life when you open your car window and hear them.  There is no way to describe the beauty of their undulating, yelping call that's carried on the chill breeze off Steen's Mountain.  Thousands of them, all talking at once, and below this call,  a soft vibration comes to the ear.  A humming from the flock that is mesmerizing.  And if you're lucky and a huge flock decides to move while you're watching, it's  heart stopping.  The call increases in intensity and seems to go up in pitch, and is definitely louder and louder, as they begin to move about, stretch wings, and then up they go, rising in a white, shimmering mass, calling and winging into the sky. An exultatation of geese.  There's just nothing like it.  In fact, a Finnish composer of classical music, after witnessing such a movement, wrote a symphony, including this bird song.  If you play that music and witness a fly-off, well it's just over the top.
It's fun to search the flocks of Ross's and Snow geese for what are called 'blue-morphs'.  These are rare to unusual individuals that are dark blue to grey in color, commonly called blue geese.   You'd think they would stick out in the crowd, but they can be pretty hard to spot.
Looking out my window at home, I see the Canada goose pair across the water.  The male, now quite hormonal and guarding the female very closely, and the female, mostly just loafing around and grazing.  I wonder if she will nest this year.
 In some parts of the country Canada geese are considered pests.  Like starlings.  I appreciate the damage they can do, but watching these two, representative of the family Branta, I have to wish them well.