Happy Mother's Day!

Just in time for Mother's Day, we have a new batch of goslings at work.  Every year since we moved to this building by the Detroit River, a Canada goose will nest in one of the big cement planters in a courtyard.  And then a few weeks later we have a bunch of goslings to walk around for a little bit, until they swim/walk/fly away.

Not the actual geese...

There was a new wrinkle to it this year.  This year we had TWO Canada geese.  The one was in the planter on the eggs and the other goose just hung out around the grounds.  One day I'd see it standing by the front gate posed like the Karate Kid atop a pillar and the next day it would be out on the hill beyond the fence.

I like to imagine the other goose was the daddy goose, waiting in nervous anticipation for the little ones to hatch.  Or it could be another female goose, a granny or auntie goose.  I don't have any idea how you tell male/female Canada geese apart.  I know swans mate for life, but I'd never heard the same applied to Canada geese.

Anyway, seems appropriate to have a new mother on Mother's Day, don't it?

And just to find the dark cloud behind the silver lining, we just have to hope the foxes who sometimes run around the grounds don't take some of the little geese for a snack.  Or Mama or Papa; I hear foxes eat Canada geese, or will at any rate.  Yes, we have Wild Kingdom in the middle of Detroit.