About 200 feet from my house lies a small pond(1) which a flock of geese has turned into its home base. Until they moved into the neighborhood I didn't know geese flew at night. No really! The only thing I knew about geese is you don't want to get too close to a goose's nest, particularly when there are a couple of eggs in it. Particularly when mama goose is off doing whatever it is geese do when taking a break from nesting duties and papa gander is minding the nursery in her absence. I discovered this at the age of 14 when I was chased across a barnyard by an enraged rogue bull goose in JUST such a situation.

My education continued here in Mountain Home 40 years later when I discovered geese enjoy moonlight formation flying. I was crossing the street one night at midnight, going toward my mother's house, and the formation flew over at about 50 feet in their landing pattern final approach to the pond: "HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK!" In the quiet, dead of night that sort of thing will scare the hell out of you, I guarantee. It's happened a handful of times since then and it still startles me.

But back to the present, I happen to notice this flock of about 20 geese deciding to take a stroll up the middle street from the pond to the house next to mine where they hung a right and started marching off across the lawns. I grabbed my camera in time to catch the Tail End Charlies(2) going into off-road mode. Out behind my house the flock bivouacked(3) in the neighbor's yard for a couple of minutes, long enough to let the tail-enders catch up. Then they resumed goose-steeping(4) toward the North. Don't ask. I haven't a clue what brought this on. But I highly suspect one of my other neighbors must be setting out a regular goose buffet because the next morning they were all gathered at this neighbor's house a short distance away, milling about with expectant looks on their faces.