Snow Birds (aka Wintering in the South)

Canadian geese march through Washington Park as if on a holiday picnic. Hundreds of geese and "wild" ducks have come to reside year round on the Southern Shores of Lake Michigan as locals have fallen into what could be a bad habit of feeding the flocks of once migratory birds.

Here three geese head for the parkinglot as vistors drive through the park and despense bread and corn to the hundreds of geese that gather to block the road ways. The birds have become to acoustomed to human contact that many will approach your car, eat from you hand and always try to imped your forward movement.

In the frozen waters of the boat basin two geese stroll across the ice as they head for the roadway and scraps of bread and corn.

Flocks of geese and ducks huddle on the ice and under the now winter abandoned piers to protect themselfs from the cold fridged North wind that whipps across the frozen Great Lake Michigan during the long winters in Northern Indiana.

As a way to provide fresh water for these water fowl the port authority has allowed a "bubbler" pipe to run in a small area for the birds to have the ability to drink, and continue to eat the plankten and fish that come into the basin.

Late Tuesday afternoon (4:30 p.m. CST) a Winter Storm sent Lake Effect snow back into the area. This is a photo of our side yard that has been white since early December. By 11 p.m. CST there had been an additional seven inches of snow added, with predictions of at least another seven to ten before dawn on Wednesday.
The frozen fingers of winter seem to not want to release their grip on our homes gutters, as snow continues to fall and temperature again plunge below zero wind chills.