Snow Cemetery Geese Return

Last February, I wrote a blog post about Frankie and the geese on our pond.  Frankie and the six geese had a bit of a standoff.  They were not please with him hanging around them but they were not going to be run off either.  They ended up staying quite awhile and apparently began to consider that the pond belonged to them and we were the interlopers.  I noted in a March blog that we bothered them when we built the gazebo.  Over the summer, the geese dropped in again. Only this time they brought friends.  We now had 21 geese hanging around.

Well it is February once again and they are back.  Mike counted 26 of them.  That was until yesterday.  Then we had 28.  Unfortunately, it looks like these two newcomers are starting a range war.

Snow Geese in friendlier times

When I went outside, I found a divided group.  We had some of the original 26 geese stationed on the ground over by the dock.  I guess there were guarding the food supply in the corn field.  The rest of the original 26 were in the pond facing the newcomers who were across from them on the shore.  They must have been guarding pond use because they were refusing to let the lone pair get in the water and swim about.

Geese guarding adjacent corn field.

Group of geese prepared to defend water rights. 

The lone pair was quite as stubborn as the group of 26.  They were taking turns vocally conveying either their displeasure with the situation or they were passionately requesting the opportunity to be accepted by the group.  Either way I have no idea how the situation was resolved.  The temperature dropped to 8 degrees last night and all of our geese were gone this morning.

We will have to wait updates on the geese saga until they return.  

Pair of geese looking for a home.