So, it is Spring here in the North East. Actually, this year’s Spring is dragging in slow and seems to be reluctant. But, the usual suspects are showing up. Songbirds have arrived. Here in the hills of very eastern New York the buds are just starting to form on the bushes and trees. Peeper frogs are finally singing. Bears are showing up and even attacked a pony south of where we live. Why! really! Yes, the bears are a bit more hungry it seems after this last winter, bad food growth for them last year. Maybe blame it on the strange weather we have been having. We had very few overwintering songbirds over the winter. My best sources say that is due to the erratic weather patterns. And…the geese are just starting to nest, now, but they are taking their time doing that.
We have had wild geese show up early when spring has arrived early, in February. This started the goose control season early, giving the Border Collies and my Family a shorter winter break. We are thinking the pairs of geese will stager their nesting more so this year, because of the cool Spring weather. With some clients, we are finding some pairs of geese settling down to nest while it seems some pairs are nowhere near ready. It is hard to blame them, the cold, windy days we have had seem hardly springlike. Still, there have been some warm ones to get some pairs going as well as the frogs. It has been nice to see the Red Wing Blackbirds singing finally at some of the ponds and lakes we work at.
The weekend before I sat down to write this blog post, one of our sons, Caleb and I took three of our Border Collies to practice herding on sheep at a mentors farm. We compete in sheepdog trials with these three Border Collies, Skye, Blade, and Tara. The training and trailing very much increase our skill level and makes goose control that much more skilled. It was a wonderfully warm Spring day at our mentor’s farm! This farm is up on a plateau and in its own weather zone. Its real name is Taravale Farm and Kennel, but its nickname is Woolywinds. We had a good training season with the sheep there, even pup Moses got in on the act, learning the first parts of herding skills. ( I call what we do with our goose control work “herd-chasing”) It was great to be on the farm with just short sleeves and not much wind!
After the training, I got in the seventh goose control visit of the day, between Caleb and me. Caleb took off to do something related to his college major. The visit was at a school in New York State with a large wetland behind the playing fields. I had all four Border Collies. As the Border Collies and I walked from the wetlands, we rounded out from a brushy path and came across a grazing pair of geese on the edge of a field. With a word from me the Border Collies flanked around the geese, Blade taking the lead to the right, Skye the lead to the left and off flew the pair, hopefully, a little less likely to bother anyone using that Schoolfield.
The weather from that warm weekend does not seem to want to last. And this week we are back to colder temps, and yes, wind. I will have a heavy jacket and wool cap and gloves and maybe winter boots packed away for the early morning start, the day after writing the draft of this blog! I am not sure the Border Collies will mind frosty conditions. I just hope the cold does not hurt any of newly opening buds on the trees. And I’m sure honey bees will want early spring flowers very soon, with their winter stores probably mostly used up. And just like farmers trying to figure out these new weather “patterns” so will the geese want Spring to really arrive. For now, I’m happy to have these Border Collies, and one mixed breed as working partners. These dogs seem to take everything in stride. They and my hard working Family are a team.
Happy Spring.