Each year from mid June to August, just as young goslings hatch, adult Canada Geese molt and loose the ability to fly.

The adults cannot fly; the goslings are too young to fly. Imagine the city out of gasoline with parents and children unable to drive their cars. Parents’ cars are confined to the garage, and the teens’ wheels are dead in the driveway! I CAN imagine the human emotion.

But what about geese?

I have not seen a goose splash down in weeks nor a skein of the large birds in the sky. They swim or they walk.

As a goose swims by I wonder what it senses about the loss of flight. Is it totally oblivious, unaware it once could fly? Does it somehow ‘mourn’ the loss of flight? Does the flightless bird confidently await a new rush of ‘flight hormones’ as a matter of course?

What’s it like?

Don’t dismiss this reflection out of hand. The Science News Magazine reports on experiments which show rats feel regret after forgoing a good meal for a bad one.

To carry this little whimsey further, what happens on that day flight returns? Is there some, ‘goose coffee table’ used to pull oneself up just when everything is ready like a child beginning to walk. Does something startle the bird back into the air. Is there a new realization, awareness in the paddling bird, I CAN get somewhere better, quicker!

I wonder at how little I really know about life around me!