On my way to the grocery store early this morning, I came across a guy sitting on a low wall on 57th Street, and there was a wet gosling lingering around his feet. Of course I asked him what was going on, and he told me, in a foreign accent, that the gosling had followed him to the street from Botany Pond. I asked him if there were any others in the Pond, and he said “no” (of course I verified that later). He told me he didn’t know what to do with the gosling, who was lively and, as I found out when I picked it up, strong.
But I knew what to do; I’m a veteran of waterfowl orphan rescues. I told him I could have it taken to rehab and that would save its life. He readily agreed, and I told him I was a biologist and would take the gosling upstairs into my lab, where there are several “duckling boxes” prepared for such an emergency: small cardboard boxes with a couple of my old (clean) teeshirts in the bottom.
The gosling peeped (and even seemed to make a tiny honk) as I boxed it and, within five minutes, it was taken to the apartment of the lovely woman who works for Chicago Bird Collision Monitors (I had called her to get an okay). She took the box, and I continued on to the grocery store.
I feel better now that I’ve helped save a life, but these things are still emotionally taxing. It was peeping and had followed the guy to the street because it wanted its mom. But it is Father’s Day, so this is one of my many offspring.
Here are two pictures; one of me taken by the guy who found the bird, and a gosling selfie. I am disheveled and unshaven because it’s the weekend and I ain’t going to see anybody.
It really was a beautiful baby; it’s a pity that these fluffballs grow up into big, mean honkers:
That’s the second gosling rescue this year, making a total of eight ducklings and two goslings taken to rehab. I hope the days of rescue are over for the summer, but they seem to go on and on. . .
Bravo!
👍!