Nice To View From Afar

   I can remember that as a kid, it was sort of a special thing when a Canada Goose would visit the Bay.  It was a rare sighting as the birds were migratory and seldom stayed here long.  Now, however, it seems we have a bunch of the critters that somehow, somewhere became confused or exhausted by all that travel.  These decided to stay and become "Southern Geese".  Perhaps they liked the warm weather here and said "Nope.  That trip is long.  How about we just stay?"  And they did.  Geese are everywhere/  What once was a rare occurrence is now an everyday thing.  No longer can we sit on a screened porch or lawn chair and marvel at the sound of geese overhead and then say "Winter is coming for sure!  I hear the geese!"  That, my friends, is a thing of the past.

  Sitting on the pier, I watch the geese in the open spaces along the shoreline.  Along with the building of new houses has come the clearing of property.  Those once wooded areas are now grassy lawns or vast, empty spaces of future lawns.  The geese love these areas!  Grass is the mainstay of their diets and a single mature bird can eat up to 4lbs a day!  Eating that much also makes them poop a lot which soon becomes an undesirable feature of so many geese in the yard.  This is exactly why I keep our place filled with plants, shrubs and wooded areas.  Geese are not fond of any place that has possible hiding spots of predators.  Yep, I love geese.  Nope, I do not love the mess.  I will continue to watch them across the way.