Happy Earth Day!

It was a beautiful morning in Estabrook Park, and it turns out that there was an Earth Day chore waiting for me at the pond. As I was at the north end looking for the recently arrived green heron, which I never did find, the geese on the west lawn near the south end of the pond started to make a little noise. It wasn’t a big ruckus, but more like the light chatter they make when someone walks their dog a bit closer than they like. The mallards and wood ducks on the water started acting up too, so I thought maybe there was a hawk in a tree overhead, and I walked over to investigate.

When I arrived, I found that neither guess was correct, and instead, a gosling had gotten one of its feet tangled in fishing line, which some angler had mistakenly left behind. Mom, Dad, and its seven siblings were all floating on the water, but it was starting to thrash a bit on shore just above the water line. I watched for a moment, to make sure I was really seeing what I thought I was seeing, and then decided to break the prime directive, again.

I reached down to grab the gosling, which caused its parents to go into a tizzy, and tried to free the foot, but the line was really wrapped around it. So, I held the gosling in my right hand and tried to gather up all the line with my left. There was probably twenty feet of it with sticks and aquatic plants tangled in it, but I got it all and stepped away from the water so I could kneel down and try to get it off.

The line was new-fangled dark green braided nylon, instead of old-timey clear mono-filament, so it was very hard to see, but the knot looked like a cow hitch, which I couldn’t get to loosen with one hand. I usually carry a pocket knife with me, for just this sort of situation, but in the discombobulation of packing up all my stuff to come home from Waterford yesterday, it somehow failed to make it onto my belt this morning, of all mornings.

Meanwhile, the gander was getting quite bold with his complaints about how long this was taking, and I had to fend him off with my left arm a few times, but he never actually bit me. I didn’t see anyone else around, so I walked up to the parkway and started waving down passing cars. I didn’t have immediate success, but about the sixth car did stop, and the good Samaritan in it even had a kit with a little pair of bandage scissors.

He handed them to me, but I had no luck cutting the line with my left hand, so I gave them back and held the line while he cut it. The gosling struggled all the while, so we just cut it close but didn’t even try to cut the line actually around its ankle. Instead, I have a hope that with no tension on it, the cow hitch will just come loose on its own.

The good Samaritan didn’t stick around, the parents were not calming down, and I wanted to get the gosling back ASAP, but I did pause for just one more moment to capture this image with my phone. Of course, the gosling wouldn’t look my way, but you can see Dad making ready to take another swat at my legs, and Mom in the far background.

I have already ordered a pair of those scissors to keep in a pocket on my camera harness so that I’ll always have them with me, and if you are an angler, please be careful not to leave any fishing tackle (line, hooks, lurers, etc.) behind. If you do clean up after yourself, please also consider picking up after your fellow anglers. Even if you are not an angler, please consider picking up any fishing tackle you find, because that stuff can be deadly to all kinds of wildlife. Example 1. Example 2.

Anyway, down on the river, I was surprise to see our lone common merganser drake again. Perhaps he has an ailment that is preventing him from flying north, but at least he seems to be eating well, and his feathers look marvelous.

Just on shore, I captured my first attempt at a house wren picture. I’ve been seeing them for about a week, and the little rascals are still quite shy.

The closest thing to a portrait I managed to capture today is this male eastern towhee giving his best hydration advice.

Finally, the yellow marsh marigold (Caltha palustris L.) is in full blossom in the bottom of the little ravine under the northernmost bridge in the park.

Well, that’s about enough writing for one day, and I hope your Earth Day goes well.