Anonymous3: There was a Canada goose that had been handing around the front lawn of the hotel for days, giving surly looks to everyone he imagined might be harboring romantic thoughts about the female geese accompanying him. I was leaving the hotel the morning he went off the deep end.
He charged some boy (8?) who jumped back, dropped to the ground, and curled into a screaming ball. I just dropped my bag and jumped between them. I thought being significantly larger would stop this foolishness. Mr. Crazy Goose paused a second to reassess, then lowered his head, opened his beak, and resumed the charge at his new target.
I have no idea where he got his knowledge of where to bite with a beak to effectively fight an adult male human, but his strategy seemed quite sound.
Fortunately my attempt to snatch the incoming bitey bit was successful, but now I had hold of the beak of an angry goose, who was much stronger than I had imagined he would be. I was also concerned about the stories that they can break bones by whapping you with their wings. Or is that swans? I think it's swans. At the time, it seemed like it must be geese.
To avoid such whapping I spun to the side, swinging the goose like some Olympic hammer-throw. My intention was to swing him around and around until I could side-step enough to slam him into a stacked-stone column off to the side. However, his beak slid out of my hand after about ¾ of a revolution, and he spun off like a goosy Frisbee. Still victory, right? Nope, that sucker was way more comfortable flying through the air that I would have thought, perhaps because he does it regularly, under his own power.
Wings came into play and he landed gently on his feet about 10-15 feet away, turned to face me again, and spread his wings for another charge. Then looked at the female goose to see if she was getting all this macho stuff. She seemed ... unimpressed? I interpreted her look as “? Have you gone utterly nuts?” He swung his head back and forth between us a couple of times, then gave a honk that I took to mean “Well, I guess I showed YOU!” and waddled off.
I looked into my hand as mom came sprinting out of the lobby over to the boy, accompanied by the desk guy a split second behind her. He had to have leaped over the desk. I see that the beak had not exactly slipped out of my hand; the outer layer had shed or something, and I had that paper-thin outer layer still in my palm.
Hotel guy says “Thank you, so much! We owe you for that!”
I hand him the thing in my hand and say “Here’s a bill.”
Unfortunately, I don’t think he got it. But it was still epic.
He charged some boy (8?) who jumped back, dropped to the ground, and curled into a screaming ball. I just dropped my bag and jumped between them. I thought being significantly larger would stop this foolishness. Mr. Crazy Goose paused a second to reassess, then lowered his head, opened his beak, and resumed the charge at his new target.
I have no idea where he got his knowledge of where to bite with a beak to effectively fight an adult male human, but his strategy seemed quite sound.
Fortunately my attempt to snatch the incoming bitey bit was successful, but now I had hold of the beak of an angry goose, who was much stronger than I had imagined he would be. I was also concerned about the stories that they can break bones by whapping you with their wings. Or is that swans? I think it's swans. At the time, it seemed like it must be geese.
To avoid such whapping I spun to the side, swinging the goose like some Olympic hammer-throw. My intention was to swing him around and around until I could side-step enough to slam him into a stacked-stone column off to the side. However, his beak slid out of my hand after about ¾ of a revolution, and he spun off like a goosy Frisbee. Still victory, right? Nope, that sucker was way more comfortable flying through the air that I would have thought, perhaps because he does it regularly, under his own power.
Wings came into play and he landed gently on his feet about 10-15 feet away, turned to face me again, and spread his wings for another charge. Then looked at the female goose to see if she was getting all this macho stuff. She seemed ... unimpressed? I interpreted her look as “? Have you gone utterly nuts?” He swung his head back and forth between us a couple of times, then gave a honk that I took to mean “Well, I guess I showed YOU!” and waddled off.
I looked into my hand as mom came sprinting out of the lobby over to the boy, accompanied by the desk guy a split second behind her. He had to have leaped over the desk. I see that the beak had not exactly slipped out of my hand; the outer layer had shed or something, and I had that paper-thin outer layer still in my palm.
Hotel guy says “Thank you, so much! We owe you for that!”
I hand him the thing in my hand and say “Here’s a bill.”
Unfortunately, I don’t think he got it. But it was still epic.