Local report from Kingwood Township - - 5:50 pm Feb 27,1998

It was beautiful.

And it just happened a few minutes ago

I was sitting here, taking a break from my webwork and email, I had stumbled onto an interesting website and was reading about the history of the internet, when all of a sudden, I heard the honking of geese - loud, loud, honking of many, many geese.

I got up, walked out the door and looked up into the sky to see what was making this racket.

It was the geese heading north. Waves and waves of them. Probably 200-300 or so.

I guess spring is on its way.

It was interesting to watch as the "V"'s shifted, seperate angular lines in the sky - lines of geese shifting back and forth, forming and reforming their one-after-the-other pattern. There was one particular line of about 30 geese that was flying higher than the others and was making a serious effort to catch up with them and join their line. Finally, just before they got out of site, and thier loud honking was fading away, they made it and joined the main group...

I imagined their hard effort rewarded as they settled down into the large V and remembered hearing about why geese fly in this pattern. According to what I've been told, the lead goose is "breaking trail" for the others in an aeronautic sense. It's easier to follow in the lead goose's wake than it is to fly into the wind directly. That's why they form up into lines as they do. They have a long flight to make and every little bit of relief is a help to them.

And they're heading north now. That's a good sign for us. Spring is on it's way...

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For more about flying geese including a RealAudio soundtrack -
http://www.earthsky.com/1998/es980326.html
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