The Zohead
How a Canada goose changed my life, influencing even the direction of my career
By Mary Lou Simms
Zoey wards off an intruder
"To this day, I can't tell you what drew me to her."
"I was jogging around a city lake, maneuvering my way through a hazy, low-lying fog when a Canada goose - a wispy little thing with petroleum-colored wing feathers and disheveled black tufts of fur around the neck - suddenly stepped out of nowhere. I stopped short, as startled to see her as she was to see me. Then emerged the rest of the winged entourage: three goslings and a good-sized gander that I presumed was the mate."
"The dad, plainly not thrilled by the intrusion, began hissing. Clearly, I was the one expected to move. Instead I stood there like an idiot. I'd never seen newborn goslings up close, I guess, and I seemed immobilized, unable to place one foot in front of the other. Eventually reason took hold and I stepped aside, letting them pass."
"That chance encounter would mark the beginning of a friendship that would span the years. I couldn't know it then but the mother in this unexpected scenario would change my life in ways I never dreamed, influencing even the direction of my career. She would take me from journalist to activist as I strove to tell the story of the Canada goose and its tumultuous and courageous struggles to survive an often hostile urban environment."
" I liked her immediately. Maybe it was her unerring gentleness around the babies or the way she clucked about, conscious of their every move, but a connection was born. I kept my distance but I took some corn from a back pocket - a treat I carried for some mallard ducks - and spread it along the ground. The mother ate greedily - hungry, I suspect - from having spent much of the previous month cradling a nest. The babies, following their mother's lead, sampled the corn while the dad stood guard."
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