The field beside the road through Syon Park is usually empty; sometimes it’s used for public events such as drive-in movies; sometimes there’s a flock of blackbirds; yesterday the Syon herd of cattle was there. Today they are replaced by wild geese.
Even with my “Italy-shaped” diagonal picture I can’t get them all in; more than forty. They are water birds, usually on the Thames nearby. Perhaps they know that the bullocks’ hooves will have disturbed plenty of small edible creatures.
The geese have their heads down, as cattle do all day because their occupation is to feed. Perhaps geese and swans evolved long necks so as to dabble in river bottoms. Perhaps the long neck of Cygnus, the Swan constellation, ending at Albireo the head, is pointed not along the Milky Way, the celestial river, but down into it.
I once floated on a raft down ninety perilous miles of American river called the Goosenecks of the San Juan.
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Guy, I hiked the Honaker Trail 1000 feet vertically down to the Goosenecks of the San Juan River from the top of the canyon near Goosenecks State Park. While camping down there I observed a number of groups rafting the river as you did. The Gooseneck appearance of the meandering San Juan is pictured in so many Geology Textbooks.
Brian Davis
Physics Dept.
UNC Wilmington
Yes, they must be incised meanders. The river was meandering on a plain; the plain slowly rose, about a thousand feet; the river kept cutting its bed down.
We didn’t see any other rafting groups. There were fewer then. We turned over a few times. I spent half an hour or so more or less under my raft.
If Cygnus were feeding in the great celestial river, the swan’s wings would be folded, not outstretched. So Cygnus is still flying south over the river.