The Mystery of the Missing Gaggle

   I might have mentioned in one of my previous blogs that I have become a bit of a bird watcher since
arriving in Colorado. I guess the biggest reason is that I spend a great deal of time alone with my current job. Traveling to my 5 locations is how I fill my day, and I usually spend time walking building perimeters to see if anything looks "not right." For the most part this is non-eventful. So I had time and I started to watch the birds.

   Birds are amazingly resilient in a world where man just keeps encroaching.Maybe I had failed to take in the huge amount of people that call North Eastern Colorado home on my short trips out here. It quickly became apparent when I started to work and spent so much time on the roads. It may be unkind of me to wish most of them away, but that is how I feel. The urban sprawl just keeps a-going, land clearing for more and more stores and more and more housing. Just once I would like to have seen Colorado before the invasion started. With land and no houses as far as the eye could see, yes, that would have been wonderful.

   I have become attached to some of the birds that I see on my travels. Yes, I talk and whistle to them. Last night while doing so I heard footsteps coming from behind me. A young couple, not saying anything about my behavior, so I happily said "Yes. I talk to the birds." (better company then most humans-I thought but did not say.) At the Loveland office where I am at the beginning and end of my day I whistle with the Meadow Larks, or at least I attempt to, they have quite a complicated tune, so I improvise. I do believe that they sing back, but I am sure that they would be singing without my accompaniment.

  Above the garage entrance is a nest that sits about 20 feet off the ground on a metal ledge. Yes, I am worrying myself silly about baby birds dropping to the cement. I am praying that they are fully able to fly when they leave the nest. A lone female Flycatcher sings a sad 2 note song whenever I am near her nest. I whistle back, and we share her song. I don't know if it customary for her breed to parent alone, and I do remember another Flycatcher here with her in the spring. It may be my own delusion but I think that something happened to him and she has become the single parent. We do have a pair of Peregrine Falcons who hunt in the field around the office. So I talk to her and whistle back whenever I am outside so she worries less and hopefully is less lonely.

  The title of this blog suggests a mystery, and now that I have updated you on my peculiar fancies about local birds I shall explain. This past fall and winter I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Canadian Geese who come to Loveland and stay until spring. Some of them stay and do not fly back up north. Once such gaggle had settled on a small pond on the Fort Collins office location. Fret about them? Yes, I damn well do. That pond sits just feet away from a very busy intersection. Since I know how most of those people drive I forever worry about a careless driver and an unwary goose.

   This spring we had nests and when they hatched there were at least 18 fuzzy gray goslings waddling around after their parents. The adult geese are not always bright. I frequently found them taking a stroll in a busy parking lot with their kids following. Once after a heavy thunder storm the whole gaggle was strolling in the main parking aisle. I put my 4 way flashers on, got out of the car, and became a "Goose Wrangler." Waving my hands below my waist in a sweeping upward movement, I gently scolded and got them back on the grass and towards the pond. Yes, the stupid humans who drove to fast got waved down too.

  So, as you have read, I am quite attached to the animals on my patrol, most of the time more than the people. (though there are some who share the way I care and I love having someone I can share my thoughts with..he knows who he is, and he is super to everyone he works with.) Today as I entered the Fort Collins parking lot my head turned as usual to the right to spy on my feathered friends and make sure they were safe. I looked at the pond, the grounds..and there was not one goose or gosling to be seen. The babies I know were not old enough to fly yet, their wings had not fully developed. There was not way that they could have safely left as a group and crossed the roads near by without it becoming a murder scene. So where were my charges? I asked in the office if someone had moved them and no one could answer.

I know I shall not rest on my quest to resolve this mystery. I am hoping that Fish and Wildlife moved them as a group to a safer location. I want an answer damn it. If any of my readers know where my gaggle went please send me an email.

~kel