"What's good for the goose?"

Flirtatious: "Like them tail feathers, do you, Big Boy?"

Real Mood: Flighty

Prediction: We'll see and hear stories this week about credit card debt, holiday weight gain, most requested toy of the season,  recycling Christmas trees, and office Christmas parties.

"Oh? You've already seen them?"

Here's a word to ponder. RECIDIVISM  The most common use of the term relates to criminals just doing the same crimes over and over again. They do their time, get out of prison, and just go right back to the crime. And over and over again, they do the time.

But in it's purest form RECIDIVISM just means returning over and over again to a previous behavior. And that seems to be what we do in journalism. In my last entry I predicted there would be a whole bunch of stories aired this week on some fairly typical holiday themes.  Well, and I'm not joking, I surfed the T.V. the next morning and saw every single one of them.

Over the years I developed a little of my own recidivist behavior I'd like to share with you. I can't think of a single one of my journalist years I didn't work in a story on geese.

They are hard to ignore this time of year. They gather in huge gaggles as they migrate.  They get in their little 'V' formations and all 'honk' in unison.

To tell you the truth I really had pretty much put them in the back of my mind the past few years.  Then Peggy came home after tennis one night and says, "we've got to go out by the airport at 5 p.m. tonight and watch the geese. I've never seen so many in my life."

Well that set off my recidivism like a firecracker. I grabbed my Nikon and away we went.  By the time we got to their evening resting place, it was too dark to shoot. But the fever had set in. So at 5 A.M.  this morning I start wondering if I should get up and go get pictures of them waking up. Think about it. I'm kind of retired. It's 5 A.M. It's 9 degrees outside.  There is enough wind it likely feels like 1 degree. But the geese are calling (aka honking).   

I got some incredible pictures by my standards. I know I can't show them all to you.  But recidivism loves company. So I'm going to share some information with you about geese you may or may not know.

First of all they are thriving.  I don't think any goose family is threatened at present. While as a rule they migrate, they don't all do the round trip thing.  They tend in large numbers to take up residence around any metropolitan area with a lot of grass. (Why fly down to Mexico when you can munch on blue grass all year long.)  They adore golf courses. And that grass runs through goose digestive systems like paper through a shredder. I've done a lot of stories with "Joggers" and "Golfers" infuriated with the proliferation of "Goose Poop."

If you are looking for geese at night in the winter, look for a body of water that doesn't totally freeze.  They like to sleep in the middle of the pond 'cause "Wily Coyote" can't get to them there.

If you want to catch a goose wait until Spring when they are molting. For about a month they all become EMUs. They can't fly.
But here's a WARNING! First of all they can waddle about 20 miles an hour. And they are incredible fighters.  I've seen many a macho man get the "crap" beat out of him by a ticked off goose.  The professional wildlife people use nets.

I know all this 'cause I used to cover a local spring "goose round up" every year.  The Division of Wildlife would round up a couple thousand geese and ship them off to other states that ( bless their wildlife loving hearts) didn't have their fair share. (It was never mentioned that those other states didn't have enough geese to blow away with their shotguns.)

Well I'm not going to tell you everything I know about geese. If I did, then what would I talk about next year. A good "recidivist" must protect some of his territory.

Oh, one more thing.  In an earlier posting I may have mentioned I ate my first goose this year. ( I never name my geese)  I'm not kidding. This is no joke.  Goose does not taste like chicken.