July 10th 2019
Again a very rainy day. Initially we had planned to leave today but we really didn’t feel like sailing the whole day in the pouring rain. And since we don’t have to, we’re not going to.
There’s someone else without plans to leave anytime soon. A solitaire white goose has arrived today here in the canal. He is continuously honking the whole time, as if he has lost someone. He sits right across the water from our boat, and is truly an image of misery. He (or she) is bawling his lungs out with so much force that his body lifts out of the water with every honk.
It’s unusual to see a lone goose. Geese are very social animals. They live in tight-knit groups, and choose a partner for the rest of their lives. They won’t even abandon a sick or disabled member of their group. If one goose due to an injury or sickness is forced to stay behind, some of the other geese will stay with that goose until he’s healed and they can all continue together. So something must have happened for this goose to be separated from its flock. Maybe his partner died and he’s overcome with grieve, or it’s a juvenile that has somehow lost the rest of the group.
We’ve named him Morten, after the white goose in Astrid Lindgren’s story about Nils Holgersson.