Geese piece

“My trumpeting sounds like a goose farting in the fog.” Alex O’Loughlin

Some of my neighbors are geese. Canada (not Canadian) geese.
I first met them a few years ago in the Las Gallinas Valley Sanitary District. There were hundreds of them quietly resting on the water like a mighty armada.
I have visited them almost daily ever since.

In the molting season (June-July) geese lose their wing feathers and are unable to fly. During this time they loiter in a remote trail area, ready to take to the water if they feel threatened, and there are enough bird droppings on the ground to fertilize a football field.

When meeting them, I thread carefully though their ranks to continue my stroll. They eye me a little suspiciously, moving just at the last minute to let me through.

They are relatively unafraid of people but could become aggressive if they felt that their young were threatened.
To this day I still vividly remember when as a child I was terrorized by a big gander, and I have always kept a healthy respect for these elegant birds.

In August, after the molting interlude, geese are generally able to soar again and they often take to the air to practice flying.
They are excellent flyers, capable of going long distances without stopping.
“They can cover 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) in just 24 hours with a favorable wind, but typically travel at a much more leisurely rate.”
They travel in V formations to boost their range and efficiency, just as military planes learned to do.

 

Geese are pretty vocal. Unlike ducks, they loudly debate what to do before taking off and continue talking while flying. You can hear them chattering from a great distance.
-Hey Gertrude, I am getting tired, can you take the lead?
-Sure Oscar. No worries.
-Thanks a bunch Gertie.
-Anytime Oscar.

Geese mate for life. They only chose another partner if their mate dies or is killed.
I didn’t know many of these things until I checked the Internet to verify a few facts.

What I vaguely remembered from my student days though, was that geese saved many Romans lives when the Gauls attacked them around B.C. 390.
“The tradition is that when the Gauls invaded Rome a detachment in single file clambered up the hill of the Capitol so silently that the foremost man reached the top without being challenged; but while he was striding over the rampart, some sacred geese, disturbed by the noise, began to cackle, and awoke the garrison.
Marcus Manlius rushed to the wall and hurled the fellow over the precipice. To commemorate this event, the Romans carried a golden goose in procession to the Capitol every year (B.C. 390).”

Geese can be loud but so what? Don’t you have neighbors (and relatives) like that?

Alain