Silly Goose

Lookout for Geese! There is just no way I could NOT write about this! The goose, that is. I’ll get there in a minute, I promise. This morning, I was walking around my neighborhood, which, for the record, is a giant circle. It’s almost exactly a mile around - just slightly over, which is great for keeping track of how fast and how far you’re going.  This is helpful when you’re “exercising with a purpose” and need to track how much activity you are doing. Which I am doing because I am determined to get myself back into shape (which has deteriorated ridiculously the past couple of years). Hence the walking around the neighborhood, in circles. Literally.  

This is where I first saw the geese this morning. They were gone when I went back to take pictures this afternoon so these are not the actual geese I encountered, I wish I'd had a camera!

In the sort of middle of our neighborhood circle there is a wetlands area. It has a big pond, lots of trees, cat tails, etc. You get the general idea. It’s a lovely spot and we get lots of wildlife because of it, including geese. So this morning, I was walking. As I came close to the grassy area that is between the wetlands and the road, I saw two geese, one slightly larger than the other. They were standing, waddling periodically, eating grass and honking as geese tend to do. 

 I was very polite. As I drew closer I said, “Hello Geese.” I wasn’t expecting a response, I mean, they were geese.  I have walked by geese dozens, perhaps even hundreds of times in my life and unless I was in a park where they have been trained to expect bread from people, they normally pay about as much attention to me as they would to, well, I don’t know, because I’m not sure exactly what geese find boring and ignore, other than me most of the time.  At any rate, I expected to walk by the geese, go around in my circle and then see them again in about twelve or fifteen minutes when I came around again.

Part of the grassy verge that borders the wetlands in our subdivision. Also, a look at the pond.

That, however, is not what happened. After I politely addressed the geese, one of them, the bigger one, ignored me, as expected. The other looked up at me and then started walking down the grassy verge, away from me. It was also kind of in front of me, except that I was on the road, probably eight feet or so from the goose. 

I continued to walk in the same direction I had been going in. The goose looked back, saw I was still walking and honked several times. The goose behind honked back. The goose in front of me sped up. I kept walking at the same pace, which, of course, brought me closer to the goose, who had slowed down after its short burst of speed. I attempted to calm the poor goose down with logic. “I’m not chasing you,” I said.

So much for logic. The goose looked at me again and honked much more rapidly, before once again walking rapidly down the verge. I think she was saying, “It’s following me!” while still attempting to look like she casually just happened to be walking very fast away from me. Again she stopped, looked at me and then honked rapidly before run-walking faster, plus adding a few wing flaps this time, in the same direction I was walking, so sort of in front of me. As I continued to walk, this pattern was repeated several more times, with the honking becoming much louder and more frenzied, sounding more like hysterical shrieking.

More of the grassy verge.

This poor goose literally sounded panic-stricken as she frantically wing flapped and ran-walked down the verge. Every burst of honking she let out was followed by more running and answered by a few, much calmer honks from the companion goose who was still standing in the same area, calmly eating grass. The drama was getting intense, at least from the perspective of the smaller goose.

In a flurry of wing flapping and running, the goose was honking hysterically while desperately trying to get away from the pursuer, me. Except that I wasn’t really pursuing it, but the goose obviously thought differently.  I imagine the goose thought it was starring in a Nature Documentary, with it playing the part of prey. The larger goose appeared to be trying to calm down the hysterical goose, but the hysterical goose was having none of it.

Finally, the grassy verge turned into a yard. The goose was a ways ahead of me at this point, but it still panicked big time.  It was a very good thing for the goose that I wasn’t actually trying to get it, because all its instincts for survival had obviously been drowned out by hysteria. If I had been a coyote or something, this goose would have been cooked. Sorry, couldn’t resist, although obviously not really cooked. Coyotes don’t cook.

Where the grassy verge ends.

When faced with the horror of a yard, driveway, mailbox and all the accoutrements of human habitation, the goose broke into continuous hysterical honking and literally ran in small circles flapping its wings. Finally the calm goose (which was probably at least 100 feet behind us at that point) let out several loud, commanding sounding honks. I think he must have been reminding the hysterical goose that she could fly. 

She flew. She took off, flew away from me then over me and back into the wetlands.  I saw her land in the pond. She continued to honk – shriek - loudly for several minutes once safely in the pond. The other goose honked back a few times, but continued to stay in the same place, eating grass. At that point, I passed the spot where I could see into the wetlands area, although I did hear honking for a few more minutes.

When I came back around, they were both swimming and I didn’t even get a honk. I imagine they had quite a conversation about the preceding events. I am no expert (ok, I don’t even have the faintest idea) on how to tell the difference between male and female geese, but because they were a couple and it’s that time of year, I’m guessing there was one of each and the smaller was the female.

The last spot I saw the geese.

 In my version of what happened after her dramatic escape, I imagine the male got quite an earful from his very upset mate about his failure to protect her from danger. I imagine he promised to behave differently next time, if such a situation ever arose again.

I can just imagine the stories at their next goose dinner party. “Oh, Ethel!” The first goose would honk, “you would not believe the narrow escape I had the other day! This horrible predator was chasing me! I almost didn’t make it and Gerald didn’t do ANYTHING! Can you believe it? He told me I was overreacting! Can you believe it?!”  “The nerve! Men! They just don’t understand.” Ethel would agree sympathetically.  

 Meanwhile at the other side of the pond Gerald would have a different story. “You wouldn’t believe it, Ron. She flipped out, totally hysterical, just because one of those two leg things was walking by. Seriously, I cannot wait until she lays those eggs. You wouldn’t believe how long it took me to get her calmed down!” “Females.” His mates would respond sympathetically while shaking their heads and the ages old unofficial exchanges rule at dinner parties everywhere would be observed.

I sympathize with that poor gestating lady goose. I do. Normally I’m a fairly practical, calm person and I don’t tend to panic. When I was pregnant though, whew, let’s just say I had my share of irrational and hysterical moments. Hormones do strange things to a woman when she's pregnant. 

It also made me think about us as humans. How often do we engage in the same sort of behavior, frantically running away (either literally, metaphorically or both, take your pick) from things that are unfamiliar, new or different and therefore frightening to us? How often do we let irrational fear cause us to miss out on opportunities to meet new people and experience new things?

 Oh, and by the way, be careful about talking to strange geese. They might get the wrong idea.