Goose Talk
by James Dawson always known the dense migration of geese, but that wasn’t always the case here. Generations ago, multitudes of geese were uncommon when winter’s wildlife was represented by anas platyrhychos of all kinds. It was truly The Age of the Duck: canvasbacks, mallards, pintails, wood ducks, red heads, and more. Many thousands of them thronged our rivers and creeks. Untold millions were hunted over the decades by every means, fair or foul, by everyone from knowledgeable hunters who loved the sport, to unsportsmanlike market
What would the Eastern Shore be like without the honking of wild geese? We need geese to announce the changing of the seasons because, for some of us, summer does not immediately end with Labor Day or the ticking of some internal clock. It ends when the geese come and tell us it is over. And then, months later, we let their departure put an end to winter for us. What do we care about the imaginary notch in the earth’s orbit tripping some celestial odometer? Where is the romance in that? My baby boomer generation has
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