Robert Gerard Hunt Stories. Commentary. Endorphins. Updated every Friday.

Geese Is The Word

The local supermarket where I often buy gas has apparently taken measures to rid their premises of Canada geese.  The rectangular retention pond that drains the parking lot and provides a buffer zone from an adjacent four-lane road is now criss-crossed with a matrix of fine netting.  From the perspective of a goose, the unsightly, white lattice must be one giant pain in the bill.

Imagine trying to land in this once-familiar pond.  Skim the surface too closely and you're suddenly somersaulting into the drink.  Manage a graceful touchdown and you're floating upon an aquatic cell with an area of just several square yards.  Want to float around in the cell next door?  Time to fly again.  Thinking about taking the goslings for a swim?  Might as well forget it.  There's nothing dangerous about your former haven, but like rush-hour traffic, it sure is frustrating trying to get around.

I was disheartened to discover the nets during a recent fill-up, not due to any concerns over animal welfare, but simply because I love geese.  They are far and away my favorite bird. I find their appearance and behavior not only fascinating but also highly amusing, and prior to the installation of anti-fowl pond webbing, I was treated to a few minutes of goose antics every time I engaged in the otherwise mundane task of fueling my car.

I understand the plight of the goose-infested supermarket.  The one characteristic of geese that I find less than charming is their communal ability to produce copious amounts of remarkably substantial droppings.  One flock of geese can quickly give your lawn that "just aerated" look, only those aren't soil plugs you're stepping in.  No, I concede that geese are highly offensive in this regard.  To the supermarket's credit, I never observed many goose droppings around their gas station and parking lot, which means somebody was getting paid for a sustained cleaning effort.  From a financial standpoint, a permanent solution was obviously desirable.  One afternoon spent stringing nets across the pond could eliminate countless hours of poop detail (the cost of doing business, you might say).  Still, so long as I'm not responsible for cleaning up after them, I enjoy geese immensely, and it saddens me that this simple pleasure is disappearing from the little pocket of suburbia it once enlivened.

I admire geese because they are alternately majestic and silly.  To see them soaring above in a v-formation is arresting and beautiful, yet their incessant honking is surely one of the most ridiculous vocalizations made by any of Earth's creatures.  They are strikingly attractive animals, but the way they undulate their long necks while poking along with a deliberate gate almost subverts their elegance.  Geese are gorgeous and goofy, all in one package.

The thing that I like most about geese, however, is their utter disregard for the urgencies of human beings.  They couldn't care less about vehicular traffic being brought to a standstill whenever they insist on walking rather slowly from one side of a road to the other.  And they could fly if it mattered at all to them, which clearly it doesn't.  The goslings haven't yet mastered this splendid indifference and can be intimidated by an approaching car into picking up the pace.  Not so with ganders and hens;  there's just no hurrying a goose.  You have to admire such unyielding self-confidence, even if it occasionally is fatal.

I also appreciate the noble aggression of a mother goose whenever anyone ventures too close to her nest, as I once unwittingly did.  She made sure I knew she was there, thrusting that long neck toward me like an attacking snake and giving a hiss that was as threatening as a goose honk is silly.  I backed up in an slow yet steady fashion, thusly avoiding a serious pecking.  I have no doubt that had we tangled in a fair fight, she would have emerged victorious.

Even more impressive is the bravado of a papa goose that secures the perimeter around his nesting mate.  The vigilant male stands ready to take on all comers, no matter how lopsided the odds.  I observed this spectacle several times while pumping gas.  One of the small landscaping islands that define the boundaries of the gas station was inhabited by a goose sitting patiently on her nest.  The male would waddle around the asphalt surrounding the island, staring (even glaring, if such were possible) at every passing vehicle.  When one motorist attempted to leave using a lane that was a mere yard from the nest, the gander puffed up his chest, spread his wings, and stood defiantly before the car.  It was, as befits the dual nature of geese, gallant and comical.

One early morning when a cluster of cars was parked near the grocery and the rest of the expansive lot was vacant, single geese stood here and there among the empty spaces like sentinels on alert.  Casting long shadows by the rising sun, they held their ground with necks outstretched, as if waiting for a signal to assemble.  What was their purpose?  Why spread out across an expanse of blacktop when the comfort of grass was near?  The scene was at once mysterious, hauntingly beautiful, and absurd.

As endearingly humorous as I find geese to be, it doesn't look like their lives are a lighthearted existence.  There is the constant threat of predators, the perils of living among so much machinery and technology, the ongoing search for sustenance and shelter from the elements, and perhaps most discouraging of all, perpetual infighting.  I could stand by the gas pump with a grin as I watched one goose asserting his dominance over the other, a frenzy of exaggerated honking, flapping wings, and the cowering retreat of the humiliated challenger.  It all looks so silly, perhaps because it is the metaphoric reduction of human conflict to its most essential elements.  Who hasn't seen more or less the same thing among homo sapiens in the workplace?  So I laugh when I see squabbling geese, yet their noisy confrontations must be deadly serious to them.  Again, the delicious irony:  our gravest disputes are just as meaningless to geese.

Are they amused by us?  It seems highly unlikely.  But I bet they're honking mad about that retention pond.

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