Cooler temperatures, blue skies, and sunshine mean one thing: long walks in the park. Kickerillo-Mischer is still top of my list of favorites. The alligators haven’t been spotted in the lake since Hurricane Harvey; I’ve asked a few times. But that’s good news for the raptors, apparently; the fish are more plentiful and a large osprey was circling the lake, diving for his dinner, skimming the surface of the water. Graceful, snow-white herons watched from the shore. Even a gaggle of geese strutted about in the woods.

Chinese geese are so called because they descend from the wild swan geese of Asia. According to Ashton Waterfowl, “there are two kinds of Chinese geese: those that hate the world and everything that moves within it, and those which have to be picked up and carried to their shed. They are so tame that they prefer to stand around your feet and won’t be driven.”

My experience with geese up until this weekend has been limited to wild Canada geese, and they’ve invariably been of the first type. While camping with my son at Lake Somerville, many years ago, I encountered a small flock of Canada geese. I gave the giant birds a wide berth, as three teenaged girls approached, presumably to pet the cute beasts. “Stop. No. Don’t,” I thought, silently, not even bothering to channel my inner Willy Wonka. Those girls ran through five campsites without stopping to ask permission to enter. The birds grew bored by the fourth. 

This flock of Chinese geese waddled right by me, their feathers unflapped.