Close encounters of various kinds
So, it was a beautiful sunny afternoon, and I decided to go for a nice long walk down by the river. Partway through my walk, I sat down by an old ruined mill and pulled out my crossword puzzle book.
It was very calming, with the mp3 player backed by sounds of the mighty Speed River, lots of sunshine, and no other people around.
However, about 20 minutes later, I felt something, ummm, well, wrong. I looked up and saw a pair of Canada Geese staring at me. They were less than 2 feet away from me. The male waddled up to within mere inches of my shoe, and proceeded to let loose a volley of grunts at me. If I stopped looking at him, he would stop grunting and stamp his feet at me to regain my attention.
After a few minutes of this, I guess the female was getting bored. She came up to the male, gently bopped him on the head with her beak, then waddled over to me and head-butted my leg. She walked past me and started looking for food on the ground. Then the male came over, head-butted my leg, and followed her in search of food.
Naturally, throughout all of this, the camera was in my knapsack, just out of arm's reach.
I went back to my crosswords, rather amused by the events.
About 10 minutes later, both geese waddled back to me, grunted, and gave me head-butts as they headed up-river.
After they were a few yards away, a 40-something Yuppie and his perfect princess 7-year-old daughter came over to me. Apparently they had been watching this for a few minutes, and wanted to know how I trained the geese, how many I had, and whether I did children's birthday parties. When I told them that they weren't trained, I was not believed. In fact, I was called a judgmental hippie who obviously didn't think the upper class of society deserves to experience the natural world.
Sometimes I wonder about people.
It was very calming, with the mp3 player backed by sounds of the mighty Speed River, lots of sunshine, and no other people around.
However, about 20 minutes later, I felt something, ummm, well, wrong. I looked up and saw a pair of Canada Geese staring at me. They were less than 2 feet away from me. The male waddled up to within mere inches of my shoe, and proceeded to let loose a volley of grunts at me. If I stopped looking at him, he would stop grunting and stamp his feet at me to regain my attention.
After a few minutes of this, I guess the female was getting bored. She came up to the male, gently bopped him on the head with her beak, then waddled over to me and head-butted my leg. She walked past me and started looking for food on the ground. Then the male came over, head-butted my leg, and followed her in search of food.
Naturally, throughout all of this, the camera was in my knapsack, just out of arm's reach.
I went back to my crosswords, rather amused by the events.
About 10 minutes later, both geese waddled back to me, grunted, and gave me head-butts as they headed up-river.
After they were a few yards away, a 40-something Yuppie and his perfect princess 7-year-old daughter came over to me. Apparently they had been watching this for a few minutes, and wanted to know how I trained the geese, how many I had, and whether I did children's birthday parties. When I told them that they weren't trained, I was not believed. In fact, I was called a judgmental hippie who obviously didn't think the upper class of society deserves to experience the natural world.
Sometimes I wonder about people.