Storytime: The Lost Gosling

 

On May 2^nd, I noticed that the geese on the osprey's nest hatched their goslings. Daddy Goose was on the lawn, keeping an eye on a little gosling that had somehow fallen out of the nest.  The little bird stumbled around and got caught briefly under the base of the cedar tree by the water.  

Daddy Goose couldn’t find it hidden under the trunk, so he wandered off toward the osprey nest where Mama was still sitting on the other goslings. 

 

The baby wandered around, stumbling a lot.  It swam toward the nest, but Daddy Goose was looking the other way.  

I purposely left the bulkhead in my shot, so you can tell the little gosling was trying to swim back and forth and came back to the yard.  Mom and Dad were still looking around.  

The gosling tried walking along the bulkhead.  

This took quite some time and after a long while, some other birds tried to help.  This surprised me, because I wasn’t sure if the other birds would attack, but they actually seemed to try to let the geese know that they had found the little one.  

They landed quite near the gosling.  The photos are not very good, but you can see that the Great Blue Heron and the black birds were not attacking.  

Daddy Goose got quite close by, but still didn’t see the baby just sitting near the bulkhead.  He just kept looking the wrong way.  

And Mama goose was still sitting on the other young ones.  

Finally Daddy Goose spotted the gosling in the water by the pier where I couldn’t see them, and they swam away from my view.  I don’t know if they stayed on the shore or what happened overnight.

On May 3rd, I saw three adult geese and a family with 6 goslings by the bulkhead.  I don’t know if the little gosling survived or if the family was the same one.  It seemed likely and I can only hope the little gosling survived.  

After swimming around for a bit, the geese abandoned the nest and later I saw a goose pair checking out the osprey nest.  I kind of doubted it was the same pair since there were no little ones.

The End