Geese in Summer

The sun had risen well above the tree line on the opposite shore of our cove and was casting long shadows through the birch and cherry trees. The lacy tops of a little copse of young locusts barely moved, as if they couldn’t be bothered to expend any energy this early on yet another blistering day.

I’d had my coffee and was about to go indoors for my morning bath when a pair of Canada geese glided silently into view from behind my neighbor’s Phragmites wall. Then came another pair, then two more. Soon it was clear: Our local family, maybe thirty in all, with the goslings that now have grown indistinguishable, has moved onto our shoreline for the summer instead of going to Canada as Canada geese should.

In the fall and winter hundreds of them graze in the harvested corn and bean fields around here, but in spring they fill the sky with their noisy choruses and point their flying wedges northward. To Canada, I suppose. Why, then, does one family choose to summer in Maryland and our oppressive heat? After all, geese are built for cooler climates, aren’t they? They have goose grease under those thick feathery coats. Or has the fat reserve been used up over the winter? Our winters here indeed have become more harsh lately. Maybe this family stayed for the corn left on the ground. They didn’t say.

In any event, here they are. As I had intended to do, they’re bathing themselves. They splash and wash in the rising tide and pick at their feathers to arrange them just right. Then they repair to the grassy bank for breakfast. Where did they spend the night, I wonder, and is there no bathroom there? Who gave the order to swim over here for baths and breakfast?

And who is that delicate snowy egret that keeps them company? She’s such a fragile little porcelain bird. Her legs and her long delicate neck and beak are so fine that a loud noise might break her into pieces. The geese look ever so much fatter and more awkward beside her. That must be why she prefers their company.

Mind you, these geese have a strong sense of entitlement to the privileges of our grassy bank. They aren’t easily got rid of. One morning in the earliest half light, Sam our vizsla spotted them and charged, damn the torpedoes, full speed into them. The geese held their ground until, as if truly bored by Sam’s warlike display, they turned and serenely swam into the cove, the vizsla paddling after as hard as she could go. She was gaining on them, and I admired her progress until I grew alarmed and called to her. She turned, and, with eyes like saucers, started a long swim back.
By the way, I was wrong in saying that geese aren't easily got rid of. It seems one only has to write about them. As I looked up just now, there was not a goose in sight, nothing but a hummingbird. The locust tops were dead still.