The geese had definitely come to the right place.
When a gaggle of eight honkers began showing up at Ronnie Davis’ Marquette Avenue home five or six months ago in Brownsville, he was ready with the cracked corn, which he was already feeding to the ducks often found on the premises.
Davis’ street is across Old Alice Road from the resaca where the geese live, though the house he shares with his sister Holly Davis is by no means the closest house to the resaca. So it’s a bit of a puzzle how they chose the Davis residence, unless geese, which are very intelligent animals, are just better than most at picking their friends.
“For a while they were coming every day, breakfast, lunch and dinner,” Ronnie said. “It got down to the point where they come maybe for breakfast and then you wouldn’t see them until nighttime for dinner.”
They don’t always show up for dinner, sometimes just breakfast and lunch. Since there were eight of them, the Davises dubbed them the the “Brady Bunch.” The gaggle is down to seven now, however, with number eight possibly off nesting.
“Some days you may have five,” Ronnie said. “Other days you may have three, and eventually the others will come behind them.”
The geese, except for one buff-colored individual, are German Saddleback Pomeranians — a large, striking breed. They’re totally comfortable around their humans and at least one of allows himself to be petted while eating, but only while eating.
“They’re so soft,” Holly noted.
“He comes up to the steps,” Ronnie said. “He won’t eat with (the others). He’ll come up to the steps and wait for me to give them something. They’ve gotten to know me I guess. … If I don’t pay attention to him he’ll start picking at my shoes.”
“He’ll undo his shoestrings too,” Holly said.
Some days the visitors stay for a while and nap in the shade of a tree, but usually it’s eat-and-run — or waddle. When they’ve had enough corn and decide it’s time to go, they move fast, with Ronnie and Holly having to power walk to keep up. That’s because every day, each time the geese visit, they’re treated to a Davis escort back down Marquette and across Old Alice Road, Ronnie halting traffic like a crossing guard.
Holly had a duck/goose-crossing sign erected at the spot some time ago. Still, some people drive too fast on the road and she and her brother worry about their feathered friends.
“They’re God’s children like anybody else,” Ronnie said. “Just because they have webbed feet don’t make any difference.”
The escort makes for quite the spectacle, to say the least — especially when the geese take flight for the last little bit of the return trip. Ronnie, who lives on a fixed income but doesn’t mind sharing it for 50-pound bags of cracked corn, wishes more people would step up and look out for the local denizens of the other-than-human world, including resaca dwellers like the geese and ducks, or at the very least take care and not run them over.
And if you do feed them, be careful what you feed them, he said.
“The only thing you don’t want to do with these geese is you don’t want to give them bread,” Ronnie said. “It can get stuck in the throat area and it can cause problems.”
Holly said she loves all animals and that nothing makes her more upset than seeing them abused.
“I’d like to tell people to have respect for the geese,” she said. “The geese are beautiful birds. They’re not bad. They’re not dangerous unless you spook them or tease them or something, then they might bite you on the rear. But otherwise they’re beautiful geese, and you need to respect them and take care of them, and have a heart for them and make sure that they live on for a long time.”
