(Photos: 1-- Annie, relaxed and confident last night at Turtle Pond. 2-- The [new] "Bradley Brigade," Brad, Wiggly and Honker. 3-- "Danny," the new orphan goose at Harlem Meer.)
A bright, orange full moon lit up the skies last night over Central Park -- even before the sun had actually set.
It is sometimes said that the full moon brings with it, greater intensity and change.
"Change" was definitely in the air. Fortunately and however briefly, those were good changes.
The first thing noticed when arriving to Turtle Pond was that there were no fishermen or rowdy teenagers around.
That in itself was good.
Instead of fishermen on the rock, there were two families of mallards relaxing.
And not far from the mallards (though in the water) was Annie, the lone goose at Turtle Pond who arrived more than a week ago.
Upon seeing me, Annie swam in relaxed fashion to the rock where I was standing with the mallards.
Unlike the evening before, Annie quickly made it to the rock and walked upon it with ease and confidence.
She came to me and gently took some sunflower seeds from my hand and also shared some on the ground with the mallards.
It was a very peaceful and relaxed scene -- so unlike the evening before when, I imagine due to the young, somewhat rowdy fishermen, the mallards hid and Annie was scared of everything, including her own shadow.
Last night I was, by contrast, looking at a goose seemingly adapting to her new and strange surroundings and beginning to feel some measure of security.
Over the course of a half hour a number of nice people stopped by to take in the serenity, among them two fellow bird lovers and a mother with a young girl about 8-years-old.
"Mommy, can I feed the ducks?" the little girl asked of her mother.
"Lilly, we don't have anything to give them. You ate all of the hot dog, including the bun. I don't have anything else."
Feeling for the little girl, I then offered her some sunflower seeds and peanuts to give the birds.
"Oh yes!" Lilly squealed with delight. "Thank you!"
But, it wasn't the mallards who walked up to Lilly to partake of the treats in her hand.
It was Annie.
As the young girl held a peanut between her fingers, Annie took it from her with the gentleness of a floating feather.
Amazed that the goose had such trust in the little girl and was so gentle with her, the mother remarked, "I was a little nervous about Lilly doing this, but the goose is so gentle!"
"Well, geese seem to have a sixth sense about people and they are particularly gentle and trusting of children," I answered, as if unsurprised.
But, I actually was surprised that Annie had such trust in a young girl she had actually never seen before and I regretted not getting a photo.
But, as children do, Lilly wanted to repeat the same scenario with the ducks and attempted to walk up to them which meant I lost any opportunity for a photo of her with Annie.
The mallards scattered however, as the child was moving too quickly.
"You have to go very slowly, so they don't think you are chasing them," I gently advised the young girl.
Lilly slowed down and the mallards returned, though none ate from her hand as Annie had done. Perhaps the "sixth sense" in ducks is not quite as developed as in geese.
"I had hoped to take her to see, 'Into the Woods' playing at the Delacourt theatre." Lilly's mom told me. "But, we were unable to get in as the line was so long and all the tickets given out."
"Well, she sort of saw her own little show here," I laughed. Unfortunately, the other shows get filled up fast."
Lilly's mother agreed and smiled.
Though Lilly had missed the actual musical, she had nevertheless found her own little private show occurring in the park and with delightful smile on her face, the evening's earlier disappointment was quickly erased by the time mother and child left Central Park.
So far, it was a good evening for all regardless of how it might have begun.
The sun had finally set when I left Annie and the peaceful ducks together on the rock.
True, the mallards are not geese, but sometimes in nature and necessity, birds of different feather actually do flock together.
Moving north from Turtle Pond to Harlem Meer, I was curious about the lone goose observed there two nights before as well as I wanted to check in on the three domestic and resident ducks, Brad, Wiggly and Honker.
The heat and humidity was truly oppressive causing the full moon to actually appear like a huge, bright red orange in the dark sky. It was quite a spectacular sight.
Sweat streamed down the back of my neck by the time my two dogs and I made it to Harlem Meer (unusual for me except during extremely hot, soupy weather.)
Not surprisingly, all of ducks were in the water (presumably to stay cool), including what I am now calling the (new) "Bradley Brigade" -- Brad, Wiggly and Honker who were all swimming together.
Surprised that Brad has so peacefully accepted Honker into his "flock" without acrimony and battle, I am now surmising Honker to be a girl.
In fact, Honker looks so much like Wiggly, it is hard to sometimes tell them apart.
Additionally, now that Brad is going through the summer molt, he too, has turned brown like the two Kacki Campbell ducks. Very hard to tell the three apart now except that Brad is slightly bigger and always has the upright posture of the dominant duck.
But, if I am surprised to learn of Brad's easy acceptance of Honker, nothing quite surprised me as much last night as discovering the lone goose still at the Meer and right in the middle of all the mallards on the lake! (I guess I had expected him or her to fly away by last night.)
Even more surprising was that the goose was no longer a "frozen statue" on the water, but actually quite animated and interested in what was going on around him/her.
So much so, that "loner goose" actually followed the ducks to the embankment, where I tossed out some seeds and peanuts.
And I guess one could say that is when the "fun" began.
The Harlem Meer ducks were unusually loud and cackly last night.
None more so than Brad, Wiggly and of course, Honker.
They literally never shut up. "Yak, yak yak." (Ah, what one would not give to understand duck language!)
Meanwhile, under a very bright lamplight, I got a very good look at the new goose.
Unlike Annie at Turtle Pond, the Harlem Meer loner goose is most definitely a boy (by the high neck, head and body postures) and I am quite sure he is very young -- perhaps a gosling hatched this past May. That is evident by long, gangly legs and somewhat herky jerky, adolescent movements.
I quickly named the new goose, "Danny" (in case Danny and Annie ever get together) and laughed at his seeming bewilderment and annoyance with the quackly ducks.
One could almost hear him thinking, "What's with these loud, boisterous ducks? They are worse than those cackly women on The View!"
But, for all his uncertainty and seeming nervousness, Danny, nevertheless held his own with the ducks and managed to grab some morsels of nuts and seeds from the ground. -- Even when "Joan the drone" showed up with her rowdy ducking teenagers and began to harass the other ducks into the water.
Poor Danny must have thought he was in the middle of a drunken duck brawl, but he'd better get used to it if he is going to stay at the Meer.
As noted, necessity sometimes creates strange bedfellows in the avian world.
Danny may be no admirer of ducks, but for the time being, he needs them.
Looking at Danny last night, it struck me as a bit ironic that my first thoughts about Annie at Turtle Pond might actually be true of him.
Its possible that when first taking flight with his family, Danny might have gotten lost or become separated.
Apparently, first flights can normally be rough on birds as they don't have their flying skills, patterns and organization down immediately. That would be especially true in any instances geese are deliberately "harassed" in which case the geese have to leave in a hurry without time for organization and "discussion.' Goslings flying for the first time would be particularly vulnerable to loss and separation from the family under stress of "hazing or harassment."
However, what might be true for Danny, is definitely not the case with either Annie (a mature female goose at Turtle Pond) or Ruffian, the mature gander recently accepted into Papa's family at the Boat Lake.
I really do think the latter two are surviving refugees from USDA goose culls around the city.
But, Danny is his own story, as is every animal or human on the planet.
My hope is that other "resident" geese will soon return to Harlem Meer which was always the case in past years around this time. (This of course, would be the best outcome for Danny as geese generally accept orphan goslings into their own families.)
But, last year the number of returning geese to the Meer in August dropped to less than ten and this year, considering both admitted goose harassment at Harlem Meer and the expanded goose kills around the city, the number of returning geese might likely be "reduced" to zero.
Certainly, the one goose at Harlem Meer now is not a returnee, but a lost child, so to speak.
A lost goose child trying to make his way with a bunch of noisy and cantankerous ducks.
Geese are having to make many "adjustments and adaptations" to a quickly changing and ever increasingly hostile world.
Like the changing phases of the moon, what is true one day is not true the next.
But, at least for one evening under a bright, rare and full orange moon, things were good and things were peaceful. -- PCA
********
No comments:
Post a Comment