Wednesday, February 08, 2006

The Story Of The Geese


Mine Mom said the geese flew over the house in a great V formation, honking loudly the other day. I am looking for them. You can see the nest at the tip of my right ear.

This is what she tells me about them:

"The geese of the State of Winter are returning on tired wings (or, did they not even go South, but stay by the big lake to spend the season?) They are coming back to the land that raised them, staking their claim. The strongest will win out, the prize--the nest. They will fight each other, brother against brother, their mates waiting silently. They were close, as yellow babies, and all the while growing up.....but now, they are enemies, fighting for the right to use the nest their mother hatched them in two years ago. The frozen pond will be littered with feathers, carried away by the wind. This battle will go on until the waters open, the trillums bloom, and the trees begin to leaf out. A victor will emerge, claim the nest, and for 28 days following the last egg laid, mom goose will stay on the nest (except for short spurts to feed.) If we are lucky, we will see the babies jump into the icy water, never to return to the nest.....until they, as adults, decide to stake a claim. Over the spring and early summer they will grow, amazingly fast, to become as large as their parents in 6 - 8 weeks!" They will leave their calling card all over our lawn, chase Mistrie if she gets too close, and march back and forth across the highway to where they spend their nights in the open field, coming back every morning. Cars come to a stop and watch the parade (as many as 22, three different families.) Then, as suddenly as they appear, they disappear...back to the lake? We don't know for sure, but they are always welcome in The Big Piney Woods Pond."

I shall keep on watching for them.

Patches

7 comments:

The Crew said...

Nice story about your gooses. We have a park with a pond that has lots of gooses too. Sometimes they come across the street into our yard where we can see them up close if we're watching out the front window. Other times they fly in a "V" over our house, making lots of honking noise.

Kukka-Maria said...

I have to be honest...I'm a bit scared of geese. I do better with small birds--the kind that look like someting I could eat, not look like they can eat me!

The Meezers or Billy said...

We agree with Kukka - mommy tolded us that gooses are bigger than we are. That's some scary birds! Very nice story. Mommy calls the little yellow babies "fuzzies" and gets all 'acited whenever she sees them near the ponds in our area.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Very nice story! We are seeing many geese flying overhead here in Texas - they make long, lazy V shapes in the sky. Do you think your geese come this far south??

~ turtle, moose & nala

Shaggy and Scout said...

We have geese at the pond near our house. They leave lots of goose poop all over the place. The babies are cute, Then they grow to be gangly teenagers and they are kinda ugly. Tell mystrie not to get too close...they stick their necks out & hiss & run at you. EEEK.

WCTs said...

Talk about bird watching...wow! Great pics of you!

The Whippy Curly Tails in the Toasty South
=^..^=