I may have mentioned this before, but on finding out the canada goose is a species complex with more than one in my neighborhood, I figured I’d never be able to clock the difference.  But I find there are two moderately easy ways to tell them apart, at least the two we get.

The canada goose proper is a big beast.  Not quite swan sized, but it holds its big long neck way up in the air.  Cackling goose might even have a neck that is proportionally just as long, maybe not, but they habitually have them crooked and short most of the time.  So if you were right next to the bird, in the kill zone, would it be able to stick its beak in your belly button and yard out all your guts?  Might be a canada goose.

They travel in a lot of the same places as cacklers, so you could feasibly see one after the other, illustrating the size difference for you.  I’ve probably done this, but don’t remember specifically.  The place tho, that would have been 1st Avenue in Federal Way, in the length between 320th and the WinCo.  Both can be found there, getting out in the street and occasionally getting hit.  There’s a “waterfowl crossing” sign on part of that road, appropriately.  The fools do not have appropriate respect for murder machines.

But something about these birds slows people down a lot more than squirrels, cats, raccoons, and opossums, which are seen as roadkill on that street more often.  Perhaps it is our primeval instinct to pay deference to the mighty dinosaur that once towered above our ancestors… That’s a joak yo.  #noevopsychbro

You know these birds.  Maybe not if you’re one of my readers from across an ocean, but they’re very well known.  Light brown body fading to pale grey-brown belly, black feet, very black neck and head with a bold white cheek mark which wraps around the chin.  The insides of their mouths are pink, which I think is kind of cute, aside from the teeth on the sides of their tongues.  Eww.  Despite the drabness of all things PNW, they are aesthetically pleasing animals.

And big.  Big, plentiful animals will be the first to go when the food supply gets fucked enough, so watch your web-toed steps, my dudes.  I am willing and curious, but not curious enough to do it until I need to.  Fingers crossed we don’t get that fucked by the dark absurdist comedy era of civilization we have entered.

The two places I see them the most are on the patch of grass between the WinCo and Southwest Campus Drive, and flying low by the huge rail yard that bisects South Auburn.  The scale difference is not something I’d ever be able to pick out when seeing them at elevation.  But much like seeing great blue herons in flight, it’s a treat to see a heftier class of dinosaur winging thru my world.

And geopolitically speaking, uh, #SlavaCanady?  If we went to war I have no doubt that Canada would win, just as Mexico would.  An underdog with sufficient resources can make it so costly for the big dog to finish the job that they have no choice but to give up at some point.  Honestly, I don’t expect shitler et al to ever get that foolish.  They may threaten to nuke some less populated cities to bully Canada into submission, if they get about 15% more weird-headed than they already are, but even that?  I doubt it.  It’s just going to be bluster and erratic trade until the fuckoes are out.

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