My firewood was just delivered. How is it possible that the summer has vanished so quickly? Gone are the lazy days when mornings could be spent in quiet contemplation of nature. Now, with something of an inner sigh, I am forced to acknowledge the imminent arrival of autumn and the drastic changes that are so intimately associated with the change of the season.
Well, that was certainly dramatic, wasn’t it?
I am definitely affected by the passage of time, but I can hardly claim to have been surprised by what I see and hear outside. This summer — perhaps more than in past years — I have allowed myself to become attuned to the “music” in the landscape, and it has very clearly been changing in tempo and volume for quite some time.
Specifically, I am speaking of the change in the sound of the local geese. In the spring, there is always that magical moment when you finally hear the year’s first geese arrive. This is generally a fairly quiet sound made by flocks of geese flying at a fairly high altitude. Quite soon thereafter, however, the volume and tempo increases dramatically.
Individual pairs of geese start flying low over the landscape in pursuit of what can best be described as “house hunting.” Each small pond is examined and rated and the most desirable ponds then erupt in a “bidding war” that can get very loud.
It is astounding how much noise that four angry geese can make as their melee moves from the surface of the pond in question to the airspace around it. Eventually, a winning pair emerges and then the landscape gets very quiet.
During the nesting and gosling stages, the adult birds seem to virtually disappear. I know they are around, but all of the boisterous, attention-grabbing behavior is replaced with that of birds that wish to remain unobtrusive. Eggs and small goslings are extremely vulnerable, so there is no point in drawing attention to their whereabouts.
Eventually, the silence is broken when the young birds finally take their first flights. This seems to happen some time in August, and there is a definite sound associated with young geese taking to the air for the first time. I would describe it as a chaotic blend of excitement and panic; almost like human children learning to ride bicycles. With just a little imagination, one could hear the young geese screaming out, “Mom! Mom! Look! I’m doing it! Mom! Mom! Where are we going?”
First, the young geese fly in little family flocks. You can often hear these flocks long before you see them, partially due to the general level of excitement, but also because they tend to stay fairly close to the ground.
As can be expected from a crowd of children doing anything, whether it’s recess at school, gymnastics after school or learning to fly, it is a delightful cacophony of sound.
As the year progresses, and we start heading into October, the tone becomes a bit less chaotic and a bit more down-to-business.
The birds are older, their general level of excitement is somewhat dampened by experience, and this is when local families might take a shot at merging into a larger flock and going on longer practice flights. A lucky pair of Canada geese can have six to seven goslings make it to this stage, so groups of 15 or 16 birds are probably mixed families.
As one can imagine, there is probably a bit of energy that gets added to the mix when young geese meet new “friends.” The level of chatter may go up, and I would swear that this is what I heard through my classroom window last week. A group of geese flew by, but even though I never saw them, I could definitely hear them. Not all that different from my own students in many ways.
As October comes to a close, we will start to see the really big flocks of geese flying at high altitudes. This sound is as raw and wonderful as nature has to offer, and I always feel my heart quicken when I catch the faint sound of geese on a day with a brilliant blue sky. Typically, this happens to be the same kind of day that I’m stacking firewood, so it is possible that cardiac distress could explain the odd heartbeat.
Then, inevitably, there comes that day when you hear Canada geese for the last time. I go out of my way to try and keep track of this, but I’ve never been all that successful. Without a large river that might stay free of ice during the winter, geese find nothing of real interest in the landscape. When snow covers the ground, the deal is sealed. Then, all you can do is set an internal alarm for spring and keep your ears open for the same faint calls of Canada geese returning for another breeding season.
Bill Danielson has worked for the National Park Service, the US Forest Service, and the Massachusetts State Parks. He has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 19 years and he also teaches high school biology and physics. Visit www.speakingofnature.com for more information, or go to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.