My headphones are in most mornings, tuned in to varied soundtracks that punctuate my routine — the stretchings, the readings, the writings, all the signal fires I light before dawn. But mornings in September are different. The headphones get passed over for silence. Geese Days are here.
I get up early to hear them. Before the rush of the day coats the road next to my window, clouding out the pond and its sounds. We wake up together, watching the steam curl across Center Pond in slow waves, like the bedhead of a just-woken toddler, all wisps and cowlicks. September. There’s no more chorus of birdsong at dawn, no trills or chirps scattering the air in cheerful wakeness. The train oozes through the hills with a deep hum, its horn bellowing to the geese, echoing in the distance. The geese chatter back, perhaps discussing whether today is the day for flight. Occasionally, an early car goes by, the engine sucked into the open window and spit out again with a loud whoosh. But the air is mostly still save for the sharp barks of the geese that break the silence. I eavesdrop from my window, silently willing away the traffic so as not to break the spell, and for a moment I’m at the pond bank, feet in the reeds, muddy, but surprised by the warmth of the water. I listen to their notes split the air, two honks like a bicycle on your left.
"Where will you be next week?" I ask.
The traffic is heavy now. The whooshes strung together in an uninterrupted jet stream of rushing. Finally, the sun breaks through the window and the pond falls back behind the curtain of the day.
Geese. What a weird bird huh? And people feel strongly about 'em. Lots of geese haters out there, there's whole websites dedicated to anti-goose rhetoric. Is it the poop? The ear-piercing bicycle honks? The hissing? Their territorial-ass behavior? I was bit by a goose when I was a kid. Knowing kid-me, I def deserved it.
Haters gonna hate but geese fascinate me and make me laugh. Their awkward necks (called a stocking btw), and how hella mad they get when you go near ‘em (the most epic side-eye). No goose is more famous than the OG of nursery rhymes, Mother Goose, but my main goose-gal is the one in Charlotte’s Web — she’s no flibberty-ibberty gibbit! (ff to 6:40) Geese have been the poster child for leadership and poet Mary Oliver uses them to remind us we’re all connected.
The Chinese created a goose army and renaissance man Bill Lishman taught them to fly. (Remember Fly Away Home? “Dad, they’re really flying with me!” If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I encourage you to go watch Jeff Daniels and Anna Paquin in one of my favorite movies. Then Google Bill Lishman and read all about the coolest Canadian that ever lived — and that’s coming from an Alanis FANATIC, so don’t @ me).
Locally, places like Lake Mansfield in Great Barrington have a “geese problem.” As man-made ponds and manicured lawns have become the norm, more and more of these grassland-adapted birds are staying put in urban and suburban areas year-round, where some people regard them as pests. But wide-open, grass-filled places are a goose's Field of Dreams, people! And if you build it, they will come...
Although human beings have a blinding tendency to hate what we create, geese are an undeniable mark of the seasons. Said to be able to notice the amount of available daylight, when the days become shorter they migrate. Although more and more seem to be sticking around, for now, migration of the geese is something we can rely on, the hissing harbingers of change as they carry away the warmth on their backs for another year.
Honker haters be damned! Take some time this fall to reflect on the geese — their intelligence, their inner clocks and their signature dark necklaces draped against a cider-sky.
"...the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting - over and over announcing your place in the family of things." - Mary Oliver, Wild Geese
Books I'm reading:
A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold (nature)
The Geese of Beaver Bog, Bernd Heinrich (memoir/nature)
Go Tell The Bees I'm Gone, Diana Gabaldon (fiction)
The Amateur Naturalist, Gerald Durrell (nonfiction)
Place we've been exploring: Rounds Rock, Lanesborough. Part of Mount Greylock.
Something that gave me pause: Bill Lishman's Underground Dome House
September's Playlist >> Goose Tunes
Current obsessions:
#hobbitcore on Tiktok
Rings of Power on Prime Video
snails and slugs
sour cream and onion chips (searching for the best kind, what's your fav? Should I try it?)
soup
our accidental pumpkin patch with no pumpkins
and geese... 🤷♀️
Stay in motion,
Tay
taylor@berkshirefamilyhikes.com