It started four or five years ago, with a single Canadian goose standing in the scruffy grass on the shore of the Pacific Ocean opposite Santa Barbara’s Andrée Clark Bird Refuge. He or she parked there, alone for more than a year, when another Canadian goose must have happened along. Though I never actually saw its arrival, the two apparently met and mated in the quiet of the night, because they eventually reappeared as a couple.
This time, they had moved across the street to the shore of the Bird Refuge lake, on a narrow strip of six feet or so, between the lake’s edge and the popular walkway of the park. There, she laid nine eggs, and about a month later, the goslings hatched. Nesting so close to the path, people with or without their dogs would often walk by, forcing the family to slip into the water and swim away. After many months of living on the popular lake, the goslings learned to fly, and the family migrated north.
The next spring, the whole family reappeared at lake’s edge, near the parking lot, at sundown. I happened to be there walking my dogs when I heard the melodious honking of geese. Upon investigation, I found the parents with their young yearlings lined up at the lake’s edge, singing their hearts out, celebrating their successful return…