This is a wonderful bit of observation plus commentary. It is always a good thing to pay attention to nonhuman animals, and wonder how they live, especially those, like Canada geese, who are so often thought little of, or worse, by our own kind.

My own favorites are rats, who have hardly any human friends anywhere; the much-mocked Pizza Rat is one of my heroes. Rats and mice are by far the most numerous animals abused, exploited and killed by the lab experiment régime, and yet have no legal protections at all. Even such AV groups as the Philly-area-based American Anti-Vivisection Society tend to feature better loved critters such as chimps and beagles and bunnies in their publications.

Perhaps the best appreciation of geese in literature is found in T.H. White's "The Book of Merlyn." The happiest of young Arthur's metamorphoses into animal form is when he becomes a white-fronted goose: he learns to sing, he falls in love, he sees from above that the world has no real borders.