Goose Guardian Angels for Mother’s Day

For Mother’s Day today, Barry took Konan and I to the park for a walk. Part of the outing included going down to the river’s edge to see the families of geese that always hang out there.

I always smile at the fact that the local goose is the Canada goose. It’s cool to know that other Canadians, besides myself, are living down here!

But today I noticed something unusual about them:

Every family of Canada geese had not only the two parents and a gaggle of fuzzy little babies… but either a white or grey goose hanging out with the clan.

It looked like the regular geese were being bodyguards — or maybe nannies, or even guardian angels — helping mama goose with her family for Mother’s Day.

I tried to find out if this is a common phenomenon. Both Ducks.ca (Ducks Unlimited) and ItsNature.org talk about how Canada geese mate for life, and both take part in raising the goslings for a year… but I couldn’t find anything about white or grey geese joining the family.

In fact, according to ItsNature.org:

“Once the goslings are hatched they are often seen with the parents. The female usually leads while the other is behind the goslings, and they will react very violently to any approach, whether it be from human or even something so small as a blackbird.”

Hmm… maybe our geese didn’t get the memo, because none of them were being violent or aggressive towards the big white geese.

After some more searching, though, I did find a picture by Bill Allen (shown above) of the same phenomenon in Vancouver’s Stanley Park, and another picture from a guy somewhere in the southern U.S… so they do it all over the continent, despite what “official” goose facts say.

So Happy Mother’s Day to all the geese families out there who choose to buck the trends, break the rules, and do things their own way.

And Happy Mother’s Day to the human moms, too. May you also feel confident in writing your own rules, and maybe even have your own real-life guardian angel to watch over your family.

Keep Unwrapping the Mysteries of Life!

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