Goose watching is not my thing. Around here, you watch your step rather than your geese. Geese are common, and they do what geese and bears do in the woods. Or not in the woods.
But this time of year, geese show that they live by a hard and fast rule of instinctive behavior. And that’s kind of interesting.
We’re near a small woodland lake. If you didn’t see the man-made stuff through the shoreline trees, you could be in the wild Midwest of Pere Marquette when this was a place worth exploring.
The lake’s got trout, snapping turtles, muskrats, Massasauga rattlers, tuba-playing frogs, herons, gulls, ducks and most noticeably in spring, geese.
Canada Geese. A handsome breed that has become as disliked as pigeons for reasons of overpopulation.
Around now, our geese show up. Usually eight pairs. They squawk for a month or two, build sloppy nests, have sex, have kids, then in mid summer they disappear. This is hard-wired, it seems.
Today the lake is frozen. You could ice skate. Coyotes and deer walk on it and leave prints in the snow. The coyotes look well fed. The deer look scrawny. Maybe there’s a connection.
But there are a few geese on the lake. Two here, two there. It’s March, another word for spring. Which is another word for mating. The geese are coming back. But the lake isn’t. It’s frozen fast.
Still, they’re pairing up out there, and you can feel their feisty territorial attitude. With their feet folded they look, in profile, like they’re on water. For them, the calendar means more than the thermometer.
But the thaw will happen. The lake will be choppy wavelets soon. And swimming will be easy. Meanwhile, the geese are following the hard and fast mandate of spring. Even though the lake is still hard and fast.
Canadian Geese are one of the more surly and ill mannered of the bird world. They are stubborn, sloppy nasty creatures, as you have pointed out. Their droppings were horrendous around the High School. I used the track for an occasional jog. A number of years ago a horde of these beasties invaded the area and the administration could not drive them off. I remember one day when the caretakers fired off explosives for several hours in an attempt to discourage these ornery birds. It was an exercise in futility. The geese would fly a few hundred feet in the air, circle and wait until the crew left. I watched this spectacle while scrapping their excrement off of my brand new Nikes. It is another case of a wildlife adapting to living with humans. Maybe, in spite of not being a big fan of hunting, I will purchase a shotgun. I do fish, however. I realize it is inconsistent thinking, but it works for me.