It is seven in the morning, pitch dark. The geese out on White Rock Shoal are making a loud ruckus. For several days they have been gathering and cackling. They feed on the bottom of the shoal. They flit inland to nearby cornfields. They return and chatter some more.
I imagine there are lots of decisions to make. Big decisions. Stay north. Go south. Look, the swans are already here for the winter -- we gotta go today. I tell ya, we're later than ever. You lead. No, you've never taken us south. Let's go with him, or her. I'll stay this year. You go.
It seems like a noisy nonsense, but it is a matter of survival for these four hundred or so big birds whose seasonal migration depends on good judgment, innate sense and leadership.
Sound familiar? On this day when the Iowa caucuses kick off the 2012 Election cycle, I am hoping for good judgment and many voices in the process.
It's bound to look a lot like the confusion on White Rock Shoal this morning. Maybe it will even sound a lot like so much cackling and chattering.
In the end, the flocks will form and in great majestic shows of waterfowl strength, they will lift off into long skeins of V's that will head south.
Decisions made. Lead birds out in front. Committed. Flying.
Copyright 2011
Wanda Hayes Eichler
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