A Ration of Abuse From a Goose

It's nesting season for the Canada geese again. While walking through a soon-to-be heavily trafficked area of the site, I wondered why a particular pair of geese were freaking out. Sure enough, mom was in the initial stages of building a nest... while there is no structure to speak of yet, she seems to have her heart set on the spot, and her gander has his dander up. He was angry enough to get right up in my face:

If you've ever had an angry Branta canadensis up close and personal, you'll know that they hiss like pythons. At times like these, they sure live up to their therapod ancestors' image.

Here's our heroic gander channeling the Rolling Stones logo or perhaps Miley Cyrus (another descendent of therapods):

Next week, we have a fundraising event, and there will be a lot of people on the site. I'm going to have a talk with the day crew to determine if we need to force these geese to relocate to a more secluded area before mother goose lays her eggs. As it is, they are immediately adjacent to one of the busiest areas of the site. I have no problem fending off an irate gander, but we'll have a lot of little kids running around, and they'd probably get clobbered.