RETIRED GEESE?

The sun was setting off of Church Road, so I pulled into Cousler Park and snapped this picture.

Cousler Park December 23, 2014

Actually, there was ice forming on Cousler pond, so there were no geese as shown in the picture.  If you click on the picture (above) it will enlarge and you will see that the geese are swimming in ice.  

Here's how they got there. The day before I visited with my Mom, who lives near the Yellow Breeches stream. I stopped in the middle of a bridge to take a pic of these geese. 

And then when I got home I superimposed the Yellow Breeches geese over the Cousler pond picture. Makes the pic more interesting, don't you think?

I never knew Cousler geese fly south for the winter, but Yellow Breeches geese 

hang around all year. My theory is that the one group is retired. But which group is retired?

Maybe the group that flew south for the winter is retired, like some older folks are known to do. Or could it be the Yellow Breeches group is retired, but they just aren't up to flying more than 1,000 miles to warmer weather? 

Well, I guess we will never know.

RELATED GOOSE TRIVIA

The average life span of a Canada goose is 10-25 years. There are reports of geese living to be 30 plus years of age in the wild. One captive pair is known to have been together for 42 years but when the male was accidentally killed, the female died a few months later.