Jack just loves to feed the geese. He often talks in his sleep, and we hear him say "Feed the geese!" many times over. Lily knows about 6 words, and one of them is "Geee!"
We love to take walks and see the pond with the birds. (Avoiding the goose poop is another story...) One time, the geese met us on the path rather than in the water. This was highly scary to the Jack (the geese are almost as tall as him). The geese are also aggressive in their panhandling. Jack stood up in the wagon and was somewhat calmer, but unbeknownst to him, a goose snuck around behind and stole the entire piece of bread he was holding! Jack got slightly nipped in the process and was wailing at the top of his voice! He still tells the geese "No bite Jack Rabbit!"
Most of the birds are Canadian Geese. The redfaced ones are Muscovy Ducks. They aren't native, but "feral colonies exist near parks or other bodies of water in almost every state." There is one other goose that hangs out with the flock that I can't identify. It sort of looks like the
Greater White Fronted Goose, but not quite. Also the range for the GWFG is wrong.
Two Muscovy ducks, one white duck and one Canada goose who has an injured wing are sort of permanent residents here. I call it the rest home for waterfowl. One goose has no right foot, but it seems to get along ok. We actually saw the white duck chasing other geese away from the one footed goose, almost like the duck was protecting the larger goose! The other geese didn't mess with the duck!
Cindy had a great idea, and so we took the kids to the New Hope Valley Railway. It was perfect weather. First we got to see the steam engine getting re-fueled, played a little on the caboose, then we boarded the open cars. We expected to have to sit on Jack to get him to stay in the car, and he was true to form in the station. But when the train started moving, he got really serious and sat very still, primarily in Mama's lap. Lily just loved the soothing motion of the train and almost went to sleep.
