Wild Goose Chasing

On Tuesday I went to the Oakland Zoo with some friends & their kids. It was my first time there and the first time I've been to a zoo in over 20 years. Mostly I had fun taking pictures of the kids and catching up with my friends. On the way home, I was westbound getting on the Bay Bridge in the far right carpool lane (on my motorcycle) and there, walking along the shoulder, was a Canada goose leading five goslings along on the freeway side of those 3 ft high concrete barriers. They were also westbound.

By the time I registered what I had seen, I was a few yards past them and by the time I decided to pull over I was at least 25 yards ahead of them. As always, I wasn't sure if getting involved would be helpful or hurtful. Maybe they had a route around (over? under?) the barrier and my being in their way would deter them from getting to it. Or maybe they were in a pickle and could use a little human help to cope with the man-made concrete wall in their way. I didn't know and I still don't.

I decided to pull over and watch but the adult goose (I'm going to call her Mama) was alert and didn't like the fact that I was there, even so far in front of them. She slowed down and kept coming for a few steps and then stopped and then turned around back the way she came with her five babies following right behind her. Shit. I had only committed to being an observer at that stage but I'd already had an effect. Now I no longer had a choice. I had become an interference and so now I had a responsibility to help.

It was just 3 pm and so traffic was light, especially in the carpool lane which is 'buses only' till 3. I trailed along walking behind the little family as an escort hoping Mama had a plan and I could just keep watch over them until she executed it. Somehow they had got on to the traffic side of that wall but I didn't see how they were going to get back. She could easily fly over but the goslings were too small to jump it, let alone fly it. They were still downy and only about 6 inches tall. There are long, low cut-outs (4 inches high at the most) in the barrier that went all the way through to the Bay side and I thought the goslings might use those but they kept waddling past one after the other as if the cut-outs didn't exist.

Her mate was also escorting us but on the Bay side of the wall and the two adults were calling back and forth to each other while the goslings muttered and chirped amongst themselves. I didn't see anything up ahead that looked promising and so walked faster to catch up to them. They could only travel as fast as the little goslings could and that wasn't very fast. When I caught up to them, having decided I needed to turn them back westbound, I expected Mama to charge me but instead she pointed her head straight up and honked and then she flew over the wall to her mate directly on the other side. Without her, the five little goslings immediately took off running. Their necks were extended and their heads way out in front parallel with the ground and they put their backs into it and they all ran as fast as their little, tiny, doll-like webbed feet would take them.

One by one I chased them down and, when I caught one, I'd run back to the place at the wall where Mama and Pop were and lob it over to them, keeping an eye on the remainder because they weren't all running in the same direction. When I saw that the first one reunited with the adults, I was encouraged and put my own back into it. Eventually, one-by-one, I caught all of them and lobbed them to Mama & Pop over the wall. All five were reunited with the adults. All this wearing a helmet. I still don't know if they needed the help but I'm really glad that since I intervened, I was able to get them where they needed to go and that I didn't screw them up. CalTrans was cool. They scolded me politely but let me finish doing what I needed to do.