It was Sunday afternoon and I was restless. The spring ahead may have played a role– my circadian rhythm would take another couple of days to find its footing after losing an hour of sleep. Waking up in the dark was strange and disorienting, but I knew I had the first extended evening of daylight of the season to look forward to. 

And, I had been stuck in my urban routine for too long without a respite. My friend’s Vermont wedding, a month and a half prior at this point, was the last time I had spent an appreciable amount of time among the trees. The last new bird I had seen was over five months prior, when a migrating Nashville Warbler found me on one of my favorite trails out on Long Island. I was long overdue for an exciting find. 

In recent weeks, a number of urban adventurers had reported seeing a Snow Goose in Central Park, usually at either the Harlem Meer or on the North Meadow, and always among the familiar Canada Geese. I had been spurned by this goose once before– on a nail-bitingly cold day in January, my detour to the north end of Central Park on my way downtown to watch A Real Pain yielded naught but some frosty fingers, one Ruddy Duck, and some exciting views of an intense aerial dogfight between gulls over a sesame bagel. No walk through Central Park is ever a total waste of time, but this was disappointing, even if I had a great moviegoing experience afterward to soften the blow.

This time, I had nothing to lose. It was the warmest and longest afternoon of the year so far, so even in the absence of my target I would have a reinvigorating walk through the park. I packed the binoculars, the camera, and a pencil and notebook, and hopped on the bus to reach the 4 train from my Bronx apartment. 

The MTA proved to be my most brutal adversary on this goose chase. As I reached the stairs up to the 4 platform, a woman coming down informed me that the 4 train was NOT running. Alas, I had failed to do my due diligence, and now I was stranded in the middle of the Bronx! The D train was a quick walk away, and I shifted course with the intent of transferring to the C train at 125th street, which could get me comfortably to the northwest corner of the park at 110th. 

What’s better than being spurned by the MTA once? Being spurned by the MTA twice! In a single trip! The downtown C train arrives to bring me to my destination. I get on the train. The familiar train voice croons: “The next stop is 168th Street.” I panic and hop off the train– it’s going in the wrong direction! The door closes with me outside of it just as I realize that this must have been some sort of technological fluke, because the train heads downtown to my destination without me. 

I decided at this point that walking fifteen blocks downtown would probably get me to my destination sooner than the next C train would. So, I emerged at 125th street and worked my way down St. Nicholas Avenue, taking the opportunity to walk a stretch of Manhattan I had never explored. South Harlem rewarded me with my first breezy, warm gallivant down a New York City sidewalk of the season. I came upon the striking Harriet Tubman memorial on my way down– a testament to New York City’s ability to endlessly surprise and delight. I picked up a souvenir in my travels here– a 2019 Topps baseball card featuring Oakland Athletics pitcher Paul Blackburn. Having recently organized my father’s old baseball card collection into a nice binder, I thought I might give this abandoned card a suitable surrogate home.

My adventure had already taken enough twists and turns that I had nearly forgotten that it was all about a singular silly goose. I arrived at the park’s northern border on 110th street, where before even entering the park my avian friends (adversaries? You can never tell) made themselves known as the honking of geese and chittering of grackles filled the air, overpowering the sounds of blaring car horns as I took my first steps toward Harlem Meer. Unlike my last visit, the park was alive with activity both avian and anthropological, and immediately I knew that this was a good sign. With the weather and time on my side, I was optimistic that this wild goose chase would not be a wild goose chase. 

I got right down to business, stepping to the edge of the meer and donning my binoculars. From here, parts of the shoreline were obscured by an island, a boathouse, and construction equipment, but I figured I could see enough to inform my next moves. I scanned right to left, west to east, paying special attention to any groups of Canada Geese. Some Mallards, some Ruddy Ducks, and an amusing line of cormorants crossed my view. Flashes of white put me on alert, though these were just the usual rowdy gulls. 

That is, until my eyes reached a sandy embankment on the east side of the lake. There it was! A flash of white amidst the Canada Geese! Was it really that easy? Not knowing if my golden (white) goose might take off at any moment, I took some cruddy, faraway pictures right then and there, just so I had proof of my encounter in a worst case scenario where this was the best view I got.

I booked it past the boathouse and around the bend to get a better glimpse at my gander. There was no doubt about it– this was the snow goose of Central Park, with its black wingtips and orangey-pink legs and bill. The goose, maybe twenty feet from the pedestrian path, preened itself, unbothered by passers by. I set up shop by a tree just north of the sandy embankment and pulled out the camera. With the sky partly cloudy, I waited for serendipitous moments where the sun hit the goose and the goose struck a photo-worthy pose. At one point a red-tailed hawk spooked my goose to the other side of the lake, but as I started walking to catch up it promptly flew back to its original spot.

As I admired and photographed, I noticed a few striking things about the goose’s character. Its honks were decidedly distinct from those of its Canadian brethren– somewhere a bit closer to the yaps of an aggravated chihuahua. The longer I watched, the more clear it became that this goose was not a team player– yes, it had been hanging around with a gaggle of Canada Geese for some time, but it didn’t seem to like them on a personal level. Any other goose that came too close to Old Snowy’s face was sternly charged at and honked at. After a few minutes, the gaggle moved to the side of the path, where they dined on raspberries and a pile of breadcrumbs (do not feed geese bread! The damage was already done in this case). The Snow Goose was very protective of this little mound of crumbs, and even lunged at some of its comrades for taking bites even when the snow goose itself had been ten feet away, fixated on something else. I watched plenty of pedestrians gawk at the unusual white goose and stop to take photos. It seems that the recent fame may have gone to his head. Though, in a way, I understand the behavior. You don’t HAVE to like your coworkers, your teammates, or even your roommates– you just have to tolerate them enough to reap the mutual benefits of working together.

Who knows how long the snow goose will stick around? Central Park celebrity birds tend to have fleeting tenures in the spotlight– it’s unfortunate, but their overexposure to the anthropogenic tends to be their undoing (though, the jury’s still out on whether “fowl play” was involved in the case of Hot Duck). Will this one find its flock, or might it learn to play nice with its found family? No matter what the future holds, this goose can rest easy knowing that it has brought a little bit of natural wonder into the everyday lives of plenty of New Yorkers.