Last Sunday I took my Little Sis to Lady Bird Lake (née Town Lake) to feed the ducks. We went to the little pier near Deep Eddy, where there are assorted ducks usually lounging around. So there were ducks, and also two black swans (which reminds me: Black Swan Green by David Mitchell is one of my favorite books of 2007...but more on that another day) and two large geese.
I believe my fear of large birds is well documented (and well founded; see American Funniest Home Videos), so suffice it to say that I was uncomfortable. But I did not betray this to my Little Sis, because she gets panicky around cats--specifically George Michael, but that, too, is well founded--and I didn't know how she'd handle a bird freak-out by me.
So we fed the ducks, and they kept their distance, and all was well until a man showed up with a bag of bread and popcorn, and he called to the geese. Who apparently know his voice because they scuttled up the bank right to him. He told us that he feeds them everyday, which I find gross because I find large birds gross. Then he left to take a swim because here in Texas, December means 82 degrees on any given Sunday.
But he had created a problem. The two geese were now above us, blocking our exit and honking in an irritated manner. Like they were fixing to nip at someone and I looked like as good a candidate as any (or as Homer Simpson once said of Santa's Little Helper, "He's looking right at me because he knows I'll be the juiciest!").
I started a low-grade panic. I knew that I was going to have to essentially offer myself up to these maniacal geese so that my Little Sis didn't get eaten. (Though my true impulse was to use her as a shield, as I once did with my niece Emily when she was a toddler and we were being advanced upon by a gaggle of surly geese and ducks.)
The swans started honking and stretching their necks onto the pier. We were surrounded, and it was time to go. The geese stood like statues guarding the top of the stairs. As we neared them, I casually suggested that we give them a wide berth.
And then nothing happened.* They left us alone, and I did not have to live my worst fear of being chased down by a goose and pecked at. Not that day, anyway.
*It's a smidge anticlimactic.
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2 comments:
Honk.
Geese are hysterically funny to me. Few animals on the earth look as ridiculous, and if I were ever chased by one the danger would be from choking with laughter.
I hereby grant you some of my large-bird recklessness.
Ding! All better!
Don't feel bad. I can relate. I hate birds of any size, the big ones are the worst. I like to look at pretty wild birds but I don't want them close to me. Our neighbor has a peacock. I hate the sound it makes and dread the day it gets out of their back yard.
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