Desperately Seeking
This is an emotional image for me any time I see it but right now with all that is going on I find myself more emotional than ever. This beautiful Canada goose frantically flew over me several times going back and forth. It appears to have lost it's mate. It was squawking in a frantic manner until it flew out of my sight then I would hear it coming back over me doing the same thing time and time again. Geese possess a veritably human capacity for grief. Their feelings and emotions are far less different from us than you assume. Quite literally, humans, a dog, and a goose hang their heads, lose their appetites, and become indifferent to all stimuli emanating from the environment. For grief-striken human beings, as well as for geese, one effect is that they become outstandingly vulnerable to accidents; they tend to fly into high-tension cables or fall prey to predators because of their reduced alertness.
There have been reports of pair bonds that are so strong that if one goose is shot down by a hunter, the partner will circle back. Drawn by its need to stay with its lifelong companion, the single goose will often ignore the sound of shooting and return to die with its mate.
In The Pig Who Sang To The Moon, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson writes about a goose who had a broken wing. During the fall migration, as other geese flew south, her gander accompanied her by air and by foot. She was going to walk south since she was unable to fly. He would not leave her, so after flying for a few hundred yards, he would stop and wait for her to catch up. He would call to her with his wildest, most piercing cry, urging her to spread her wings and fly with him to their distant home. He accompanied her until she was killed by carrion eagles and he had to continue his journey alone.
Widowed geese have been observed circling around and around, crying in heartrending sorrowful tones when their partners die or are shot by hunters. The remaining goose may mourn for a period of time and then mate again. Or they may mourn for the rest of their lives and never seek another mate. Just as with people, it varies with individual geese.....Choo Choo Rosenbloom
So I stood in the field with this knowledge and wept as she or he kept flying over me and frantically calling for their mate. It's an incredibly sad thing to witness.
Everyone please be safe. Thinking of you all.
Desperately Seeking
This is an emotional image for me any time I see it but right now with all that is going on I find myself more emotional than ever. This beautiful Canada goose frantically flew over me several times going back and forth. It appears to have lost it's mate. It was squawking in a frantic manner until it flew out of my sight then I would hear it coming back over me doing the same thing time and time again. Geese possess a veritably human capacity for grief. Their feelings and emotions are far less different from us than you assume. Quite literally, humans, a dog, and a goose hang their heads, lose their appetites, and become indifferent to all stimuli emanating from the environment. For grief-striken human beings, as well as for geese, one effect is that they become outstandingly vulnerable to accidents; they tend to fly into high-tension cables or fall prey to predators because of their reduced alertness.
There have been reports of pair bonds that are so strong that if one goose is shot down by a hunter, the partner will circle back. Drawn by its need to stay with its lifelong companion, the single goose will often ignore the sound of shooting and return to die with its mate.
In The Pig Who Sang To The Moon, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson writes about a goose who had a broken wing. During the fall migration, as other geese flew south, her gander accompanied her by air and by foot. She was going to walk south since she was unable to fly. He would not leave her, so after flying for a few hundred yards, he would stop and wait for her to catch up. He would call to her with his wildest, most piercing cry, urging her to spread her wings and fly with him to their distant home. He accompanied her until she was killed by carrion eagles and he had to continue his journey alone.
Widowed geese have been observed circling around and around, crying in heartrending sorrowful tones when their partners die or are shot by hunters. The remaining goose may mourn for a period of time and then mate again. Or they may mourn for the rest of their lives and never seek another mate. Just as with people, it varies with individual geese.....Choo Choo Rosenbloom
So I stood in the field with this knowledge and wept as she or he kept flying over me and frantically calling for their mate. It's an incredibly sad thing to witness.
Everyone please be safe. Thinking of you all.