Trego's Mountain Ear

I was finishing lunch Friday when a knock came at the door.  It was Ethan, Fish, Wildlife and Parks biologist – and he wanted to try to get a small gosling adopted into one of the flocks on the pond.  I had other things scheduled – but a small animal who needs assistance always goes to the head of the list.

Several years ago I watched 3 little coots move in on Goose, Gander and their flock – so I was pretty well convinced that geese will adopt birds that are kind of shaped like geese.  Still, we didn’t know how to proceed. 

Fortunately, the geese knew what to do. Ethan put the gosling in the channel, I wandered around the pond herding the geese toward the channel – and when the little gosling saw flocks of geese, it started peeping and motorboating toward them.

The first flock had much older goslings and mother goose was quick to reject the little fellow.  Then it tried to move in on a larger flock with smaller goslings.  Success – a pair that had 5 little geese now has six – and you can’t tell who was adopted.  It was a great afternoon.

The little diving duck has 11 little ones – I think.  It’s really hard to get a good count on these little guys – by the time they’re a week old, they wander off doing their own thing, and in the midst of a count some will dive and others will surface.  It’s been a good Spring for pond watching. Soon we’ll be watching fawns in the field.