A little goose parade

My eldest and I went on a couple of lovely walks on recent evenings near Chickacoo Lake in the Glory Hills west of Edmonton, during a dog/house-sitting stint for Christina's friends. We were looking at a map of the walking trails in the area when Christina suddenly said, "Don't move."

I slowly turned my head to see what was advancing upon us, but there was nothing visible... until I looked down. Two young Canada geese were puttering around our feet making funny little cheeping noises and nibbling on the grass. There were no other geese to be seen out on the lake -- just ducks, a blue heron, and numerous red-winged blackbirds.

Christina's experiences of geese have been on the unnerving side -- having a large goose come hissing and threatening with its baseball bat wings even once is enough to make the bravest soul keep a healthy distance. But these two at our feet weren't being aggressive in any way, nibbling grass and burbling to each other, analyzing Christina's toes for a minute or two. So we chattered at them for a few minutes, marveled at their seeming fearlessness, and then decided to walk further around the lake.

When we turned back for one more look at them, they were following us, and it soon became evident that they were determined to stay with us, waddling along at a steady pace. I'm not sure that they could fly -- they were small enough to be teenage geese, and their wing feathers looked a bit short. Not wanting to draw them away from their lake home and hoping that the parent birds would return, we turned back to try to accompany them to the dock where we first noticed them before they followed us up the hill.

Christina led the parade, and we eventually got them out onto the platform, then turned and high-tailed it back into the treed paths beside the lake. At that point, after all that walking, it seemed they were happy to return to the water.

I somehow doubt that it was pure curiosity that brought them to us -- I suspect people have fed them and they associate us two-leggeds with the idea of interesting food experiences. Another example of why we shouldn't feed wildlife -- as Christina says at the end of the parade video below, those two were a little too trusting.

Here's a little wildlife fix for you, friends... not that they were particularly wild.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81TgWMNzIUI