Of Mother Nature & Mean People (and geese)

Luka Blue looks out the bedroom window at the goose making her nest along the pond’s shore. Somewhere her mate is patrolling the perimeter, spoiling for a fight.

I found myself in a strange predicament last week.

As I sat on the patio enjoying nearly perfect Colorado springtime 70 degrees, I heard a weird noise behind me by the pond.

I turned and saw a man straddling a bike standing about 3 feet from a group of the community’s Canada geese, shooting them with a paintball gun.

At first, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Because this is Boulder, Colorado, which at one time was ranked as No. 4 on Estately’s Best Cities for Hippies list. (Note: No. 1: Eugene, OR; No. 2: Olympia, WA; No. 3: Asheville, N.C.) Boulder, touted as a ‘citadel of freethinking,’ also is home to Naropa University, a private school founded by a Tibetan Buddhist.

All this is to say Boulder is typically a pretty peaceful place, where you can play hacky sack on the Pearl Street Mall without judgment and residents enjoy the beauty of Mother Nature.

So, to see this man actually shooting at the geese was, well, a real shocker.

I immediately yelled: ‘Hey…What the hell?’

The man turned, saw me, and sped off on his bike.

This is where it got even stranger: I started running through the neighbor’s backyard and across a bridge to the bike path.

I have no idea what I was thinking:

A. I was doing something entirely too anaerobic for my lifestyle.

B. The geese were really agitated and probably not willing to back me up in combat.

In reality, I had no chance of catching the guy. By the time I got across the bridge and the geese had dispersed, the lone gunman was lost to me. (No bird seemed hurt. They were pretty riled up, though. ‘This is Boulder, for Christ’s sake.’ they likely were thinking.)

It's probably a good thing I run really slow. When I relayed this event to my dad, he asked: ‘What were you going to do if you caught the guy?’

Honestly, I have no sound answer.

I’m not one for vigilante justice or making citizens’ arrests. I guess it just made me feel better knowing I was able to make the creep move on and, gasp, protect the stupid geese.

Which got me thinking: Would they do the same for me?

Narrator: ‘Doubtful. Very doubtful.’

The past few weeks have been eventful in the neighborhood. For the geese anyway.

I like to call this time of year the ‘goose rut.’ See, it’s the time of year when Daddy Geese and Mommy Geese set their sights on starting a seasonal family.

It’s also the time of year when the geese get super cranky and attack everything.

Last week saw goose-on-goose skirmishes that left a few limping around for days. Also, one slow-walking elderly man was forced to run for his life when he passed the dominant pair of geese now nesting on the pond’s shore. Today, the same pair chased off a low-flying crow while shouting the saltiest of goose obscenities.

So, it’s not a quiet time of year. It’s actually kind of a dangerous time of year.

I plan to work in the yard tomorrow, across the pond from the nesting pair. So far, they’ve been tolerant of me in the yard.

Hopefully, they remember me as a protector and not a slow-running target for an easy aerial attack.

Wish me luck.