I was walking quietly along a fence in our pasture. I stood in the shadow of one of the railway-tie fence posts for a while, waiting to see what might hop by or flutter overhead. When I took a few steps heading toward my next spot, I heard this outraged honking on the other side of the fence and about sixty feet away.
It was a fine upstanding Canada Goose couple, out for a stroll in what they thought were their own private grounds. And here I brazenly stepped into their line of site, an intruder and an interruption! Well, they complained vociferously.
A little later I heard honking overhead, saw another pair winging by, saw one land, and then the second one joined it on the field.
Panic erupted! The original occupants were extremely offended and came on the run, shrieking and honking and thrashing their wings!
Before I knew it, the newcomers had fled in panic.
“And don’t ever come back!”
(I like the open mouth view of the goose’s tongue as it trumpets its derisive and angry insults.)
Those do not sound like Mennonite pacifist geese to me. Entertaining though!
The geese may be thinking of this Shakespeare quotation: “I do desire we may be better strangers.”