Ponderings

Empty Nest

There are many Canada geese in the vicinity of our office building. It’s right off the river, so that makes sense. Each year, we watch as they couple, build a nest, lay eggs, and then somehow swap babies as families of six and four turn to seven and three.

This year, we named some of the geese. Charlie and Sylvia’s nest was disturbed early on this season. We found another nest with empty egg shells, too. This left the new babies for the season as the responsibility of the two geese pictured here, who we named Mitch and Rita Moreno. Rita dutifully sat on her nest and Mitch watched from nearby. He was very mellow, which is more than I can say for the father of the other pending family in the area.

There is a nest in the parking lot across the street, and the mother sits there… mostly. The father, on the other hand, is busy terrorizing walkers-by. He has flown at me on a couple of occasions. We’ve named him Satan. I thought naming his mate Persephone would be fitting, but no one else seems to agree.

In any case, we’re still not sure if Satan’s going to be a Daddy or not. We can’t get close enough to see the nest.

Mitch and Rita, we knew, had three eggs in their nest. Mitch came by every morning to say hello and we’d toss him some bread (which is not what you’re supposed to do with wild geese, yes, I am aware).

It rained hard a few days ago. If you look at the picture, you can see that the nest was too close to the water’s edge. Well, we checked the usual spot this morning. No sign of the eggs. No sign of Mitch or Rita. The eggs are gone.

I feel so bad for our little goose family. Rita had been sitting there for weeks now, so I think the eggs would’ve started to hatch any day now. We saw a couple of geese not far from the nesting spot, kind of just sitting in the grass, chilling out. If that was, in fact, the couple in question, there were no babies with them.

It appears that Satan is our only hope for babies this year.

Tags: canada geese, empty nest, goose family

© 2008 barelymyself.com.