Focusing

There is an old saying "careful what you ask for, you may just get it."
Isn't that the truth!

I am always amazed how you can say something and then it happens out of the blue!

My son was telling me how he was on the roof of his 4 story building in Vancouver at a birthday party and he looked over, and there was a Canada goose nesting in a big tall fern flower pot!  Now you have to wonder what sort of choice that was!

I was mentioning this to another and the fact there are so many Canada geese here in BC but where I come from, we were allowed to hunt them!  Didn't seem like, by the look of the population that didn't happen here.  Perhaps it does, but if you can hunt them, it seems it is a well kept secret!  Either way, there are plenty.  Perhaps that explains why the mothers are lacking in good judgement concerning their young.  I will explain.

After telling the potted plant Canada goose story, I mentioned how goslings will imprint with the first thing they see when they open their eyes and I would NOT want that.  I can't see it being fun having a goose following you around!

Soon after I bought a Skeeter pontoon boat to go out on the lake.  I decided to try it out.  It is a two tone brown and you sit in the middle of it with your feet in the water.  The basket is behind. I tell you, catching a big one in it is no easy feat but I digress!

I went out when there was not a ripple on the lake.  I am rowing around when I hear this strange bird sound over and over.  Well, I am not great with repetitive sounds. Drives me nuts so I am looking around for the source of the noise and there, coming towards me is a tiny baby goose!  I had two thoughts, "where is mom, and oh no, I do hope it is not just hatched!".

So I paddle away but it keeps right on coming. I am quite far out in the lake and I know there is a family of bald eagles who like to hunt this lake and that little one is a sitting duck so to speak!

So with this little one working it's little legs off, I head towards shore with it peeping and coming for me.  I see it is getting tired so I slow and it comes up and nestles in between the pontoons at my feet.  Clearly it has not been swimming long.

So I scoop it up and let it sit on the pontoon still heading for sure.  When it had enough it plopped off back into the water.  Now it was sure I wasn't mom so headed back to shore and was quiet, so I high tailed it out of there before it decided to come after me again!

I went about my business and later that evening I biked over to the public wharf since earlier I had heard the geese return.  I was standing on the dock looking over where they were on the lake and I saw a little one so I thought it was the one I had sent back to shore.  Then I hear the peeping again, and out from under the dock comes this little gosling!  Great, it is heading back out into the center of the lake.  Well, the group hear the peeping and the mother and baby start swimming out towards it.  Mom goose does a low short honk over and over like a beacon for the little one.  When she hears it, the little one turns and starts swimming towards the mother with the other gosling in tow.  The little one I noted did not get to mom, mom flew over and landed on the other side of it, but it when to it's sibling who was following mom and then all turned and went back to the group.

Sadly, there was a bunch of geese and only two young.  These grown ups left the young ones over in a pond behind the lake but I have not seen any younger geese at all. I think the eagles got them. Perhaps this is natures way of maintaining the balance.  One thing for sure, I will never focus on bird imprinting ever again!