Heading North

It was hard to get anything done in the garden yesterday. I had good intentions but every time I bent into my weeding work, another skein of geese would come along. Yes, geese are a gaggle when they are on the ground, but in the air they are a skein or a wedge or a team. If they are flying close together, they are a plump.

These were definitely not plumps. They were flying in textbook ‘V’ formation, skein after skein of them or, wedge after wedge. Clearly in teams. They were smaller than Canada Geese and had a higher, almost peep-like sound. Susan and Bradley came by as I was gawking and we all gawked together. We speculated where they had come from (California? Mexico?) and how far they were traveling (Alaska? Canada?) and what kind they were.

Nyel, Hard at It

“I wonder if they’ll have a sleepover at Leadbetter Point tonight?” asked Susan. I didn’t think they’d all fit. There were thousands upon thousands of them. Sometimes there was a minute or two between skeins. Sometimes two or three teams came along at the same time, flying in stacks. We watched as the leader would drop back and another bird would take over. Once in a while two skeins would merge and, occasionally, one poor fellow dropped far behind. Maybe waiting for the next group?  Or would he get a second wind (so to speak) and catch up later?

“Call Kathleen Sayce and ask her what kind they are,” Bradley said.

Mrs. G. W. Leak, Also Looking Skyward

“They’re Cackling Geese,” she told me. “They used to be considered a subspecies of Canada Geese but the geneticists have recently determined that they are actually their own species. They’re somewhat smaller than the Canadas. I’ve been watching them for several days now.”

She said they are headed for Southeast Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. They’ll fly straight through – no stopovers – right over the ocean. They could be from the Willamette Valley in Oregon or from California’s Central Valley, but probably not from as far south as Mexico.

I asked if the Brant (the smallest goose that arrives here in December) had flown north yet and she said, “Not until the end of April, usually.” And then she told me a very interesting fact: whatever triggers the “fly north now” instinct in Brant seems to also trigger the nesting instinct in our swallows! Although both the barn and cliff swallows have been back for a week or so, they are just refurbishing last year’s nests now or, perhaps building anew, but they won’t begin laying their eggs until the Brant fly north. Who knew?

And do I feel guilty that I spent most of the afternoon looking up rather than with nose-to-garden bed? Nope. Not even a little bit!