For the last few weeks, we here at WGBH News have been closely following a family that moved into our Brighton studios. It’s a family of Canada geese that found a home up on our roof. But a roof isn’t a great place for little goslings, and Tuesday we saw a dramatic effort to get them someplace better.
It’s been a few months now since the geese first joined us here at WGBH. There’s actually a patch of grass on our roof, where the mother goose decided to make a nest. GBH employees watching her closely reported she was sitting on three eggs. A week or so ago, they hatched.
“There’s only certain circumstances where we can move healthy wildlife," said Danielle Genter of the Animal Rescue League of Boston. "Them being on a roof where they don’t have access to food, this would be one of those circumstances.”
We called the Animal Rescue League Tuesday when one of the goslings fell off the roof and landed on a ledge outside our second-floor newsroom. Reporters and producers lined up at the window to see this adorable little thing trying to get back to its nest.
Genter arrived, and WGBH facilities manager Dave Price brings her up the roofdeck to see the nest. Genter wanted to move the whole family to an area with water and more grass.
“If mom stays on the babies, she’ll be easy to catch," she said. "Dad, not so easy. So we’ll see how this works out.”
It’s a big job, so her colleague Bill Tanguay arrived for backup. Tanguay says this is a challenge they’re seeing more and more.
“Living in a city, there’s so much landscaping, and now everybody’s got a little garden on the roof, and it’s safe from predation,” he said.
But goslings can’t fly, and they’re likely to fall off the roof. Tanguay says they get a lot of calls for ducklings, too.
“When we start having to get all the baby ducks off the roof, like, the peeping just gets in your head," he said. "And at night, when you’re trying to sleep, you swear to God you hear baby ducks everywhere all the time. That sad little peep.”
He says spring is a busy season for animal rescue.
“First the mammals are born, and the ones that nest up high, gravity lets us know about them first, when they start falling out of trees,” he said.
Then baby birds follow.
"Then the second wave of baby squirrels, baby birds starts over again," Genter said.
"Yeah, and this is our summer," Tanguay said.
Genter and Tanguay walked slowly out on the roof deck towards the mom goose. As they threw crumbs, she got up, bobbing her head, revealing two goslings. The father goose, at first nowhere to be seen, came flying in, and did not look happy.
"He looks really serious," laughed WGBH’s Annie Shreffler, who joined me in watching the scene unfold. "He’s got a strut on as he goes down there, head up and down."
With feathers flying, Genter carried the mother goose under her arm as it flapped and honked. Tanguay had the two babies, and they put the mother and goslings in separate crates. Then they tried to corner the father, but it managed to sneak through Tanguay’s legs and fly off as he lunged for it.
"I thought you had him," I told him.
"I did, too."
The dad wasn't going to get caught this day, so it was time to turn their attention to the gosling still on the ledge outside the newsroom. Fortunately, WGBH has a huge hydraulic lift big enough to get to the ledge, and Genter rode it up to collect the last gosling.
———
So some people might say there’s no shortage of Canada geese out there, and that this seems like a lot of effort to go to to rescue some Canada geese when there’s so many of them in the world.
"Well, these Canada geese need help," Genter said. "They don’t know there’s a lot of Canada geese or too many Canada geese. They’re stuck up there and they’re stressed out and they need help. And that’s what we’re here for. We’re the Animal Rescue League of Boston."
The geese all went in the animal rescue van, which heads down to the Charles, where they were let out in the grass along the river bank.
"They’re staying close to her, she’s staying close to them," Tanguay said. "They’re eating. I think things are good."
"And hopefully Dad will be swinging by soon, and the family will be reunited," Genter said.
As the rescue team walked away and got back in their truck to head to countless other animal emergencies, WGBH’s very own mother goose and her three goslings waddled down to the river, and went for a swim.
