Beautiful Brant

When it wouldn’t stop raining yesterday, and I felt I absolutely had to get out of the house, I drove to the beach by Point Hudson, and found over a hundred Brant-- a small goose (not Brandt’s Cormorant). I was the only one there, walking through the gray drizzle, watching the geese prancing through the foam on their search for delicious eelgrass and sea lettuces. Each Brant looks like a painting.  They’re similar to the maligned Canada Goose, but smaller, darker, and with a necklace, not a chinstrap. After they winter here in the Puget Sound, soon they’ll migrate to the high Arctic to create grassy nests lined with down, staying with their partners as together they care for the baby Brant. I had never seen so many Brant together, and felt so lucky to be driven outdoors on such a dismal day.