You may wonder how Goose Flats got its name. The “flat” part is easy. It was a plat of land that stretched for miles in all directions with barely a ripple, meeting abruptly with the table-topped mesa to the north, the sage-brushed foothills roiling up in the east and the snaking river bordering the south and west.
All of this formed an enclosed flat plain that was once rich pasture land, but is now more of a scrubby stopping-off point for the errant Canadian goose or two. Hence, Goose Flats.
Canadian geese are ubiquitous in our part of the country where we are very accustomed to braking for them as they cross city streets, or seeing them in packs grazing in every park.
Even the most highly commercial parts of the city are not immune, as the flocks will forage on any narrow strip of grass they can find bordering the parking lots. Some folks consider them pests. Others, like me, find their presence somehow reassuring.
You can’t be in a hurry when a goose is crossing the road in front of your car, especially in the spring when she is being trailed by a string of fluffy goslings.
We are also accustomed to hearing the squawking flocks as they travel across town from one watering hole to another. Sometimes they fly low enough that you can hear the faint sound of their beating wings, a comforting rhythmic whir…whir…whir…whir that whispers right above your head.
On warm nights, when windows are open, their distant staccato honks can be heard at higher elevations, as a small band flies off to wherever it is they gather to roost.
What we are not accustomed to is something I witnessed last spring that I have never experienced before or since. Walking the old road at Goose Flats I began to hear behind me a repetitive droning sound that started faintly but continued to grow louder and louder.
I turned around to see hundreds and hundreds, maybe even a thousand, geese all flying from the direction of the flat-topped mesa to the north. They came in wave after wave, all honking and honking simultaneously.
As the horde of birds flew directly overhead, the continuous thundering roar became so loud that I could feel it reverberating in my chest like a drumbeat. I stood stock still, face upward, unable to move as I witnessed this awe-inspiring flyover.
As the geese began to disperse, I looked far off to my distant right and left and noticed that small pockets of people, whether alone, or gathered in groups, were standing motionless, staring up at the sky. Like me, they had all stopped, turned, and stood like statues staring upward at the swarms of sounding birds, as dumfounded as I had been.
What we had all witnessed was an event. I would even say an auspicious event. It was to become in my mind the celebration of a profound leave-taking; a fond farewell to a place that was soon to be no more. Almost overnight, the abandoned road was cordoned off. Unfriendly placards warning, “NO TRESPASS” sprouted up like weeds. Worrisome signs with detailed maps were posted, announcing a proposed new property development. The Goose Flats that I had grown to know and love would soon be forever displaced by row after row of identical housing units and sprawling high-rise condominiums. Goodbye to the old rancher and his tractor. Goodbye to the little coyote and his herd of bovine friends. Goodbye to the scrappy starlings and straggling geese casually snipping at the dry grass. Goodbye to my days of carefree wandering along the scrubby cracked pavement, two happy dogs in tow.
Perhaps the geese, in their innate wisdom, had seen the signs of eminent upheaval that we humans had chosen to ignore. If so, they certainly showed us all how to give a place of wondrous, inscrutable beauty the rousing sendoff it deserved.
