Not a Gaggle

Darkness comes early now, so by six o'clock last night it had set in, which is why it was plenty dark when we went walking about an hour later. And that's why we didn't see them much. But we heard them honking and squawking as wave after wave, or gaggle after gaggle, passed almost overhead but not quite near enough to see in the early darkness. Judging by the sound and fury, some of the gaggles were quite large. Others were small, but they all called incessantly to one another.

Perhaps most of the noise is to tell other gaggles, the stragglers as it were, in which direction to fly. Perhaps the stragglers squawk to say, "Hey, hold up, we're on our way."

This went on constantly for about ten minutes as gaggle after gaggle honked its way across the dark sky. Then, about fifteen minutes later a final and small gaggle flew by. Wherever they had been, they must have found some pretty fine pickings to make them so tardy.

Chalk one up for town life (see previous post). With gazillions of green acres all around, the geese have many places to fly to and from ... and to again. I wonder what causes them to relocate with such zeal from one field to another in the dark, though.

PS: Well, excuse me. At the conclusion of the above I decided to double-check "gaggle" with dictionary.com. Guess what. When geese are in flight they're not a gaggle but a skein. They're only a gaggle when on the ground. Who knew: aside from that renown college English teacher, KGMom?