Geese
have been on the go these past months. They can be seen, and heard, in their
v-shaped migration to warmer climates. It’s a long trip and they have to stop
along the way for rest and food. I was on my way home from grocery shopping
when I saw a flock of geese chowing down on small patch of bedraggled grass
between busy roadways. Not a particularly inviting place to take their respite.
But then this area didn’t always look like this. The place where the geese had
landed used to be a wide stretch of open, grassy ground. There were two roads
that intersected, with green medians stretching along the length of them. There
was no overpass, no jug handles, no ramps coming off the main arteries looping
around and heading backwards in a confusing attempt to keep some semblance of
approach to the town’s main street.
The
geese had no map showing them the “improvements” to the road. Migration is
partly a response to the freezing of the water supply up north and the lack of
food during the cold months of the year. It also seems to be a learned
behavior, calling geese year after year to the places they have been before.
Which brings up the problem of the conflict between natural habitat and human
expansion. Suburban growth has altered much of the local environment.
Things
are changing, though. Many communities are beginning to see the value of
preserving undeveloped land; people are working with their townships to
preserve their farms, woodland, or open fields in a movement to keep land
free of development. Other things are changing, too. The temperature of the
earth is heating up (this has been the warmest decade in recorded history) so
maybe the geese won’t have to migrate in the future. It would be easier for
them, no doubt, but I must say, I would miss seeing their elegant flight
formations and hearing the call that heralds the change of seasons.
The
Canada Goose makes the long trip:
How
is the earth heating up?
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/page2.php
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