The One Where I Met My Tormentor (Burnaby Lake Birds)

I don’t wake up early and I definitely don’t drive halfway across the known universe on an empty stomach but somehow I found myself doing both last Saturday morning.

I like photography. I don’t particularly love birds — don’t hate ‘em, save your angry typity fingers — but given my suburban location, they’re among the most common wildlife around (besides trash pandas and rats). And ducks, who are honestly really frickin’ cute.

But y’know what? Somehow on this two hour trek, I had a breakthrough moment of personal growth.

This is a Canada Goose. Not a “Canadian Goose.” It’s just Canada Goose.

GQ: Goose Quarterly

Like the fancy ass jackets, which I (jokingly) wish were made from these creatures (they’re not) because they are tormentors of young children! Growing up in the Lower Mainland of BC, Canada, I remember these park chickens to be taller against my five year old self. A formidable opponent. They, with pecking, hissy beaks against me, a sweet toddler with dangling zipper and cinch pulls on my jacket. I remember running around Como Lake in Coquitlam, not out of sport but out of pure unbridled fear as a flock of hissy, angry Canada Geese ran surprisingly fast behind me, gaining ground with each wave and bob of their long, angry necks and flippity flop of their feet…

They wanted my shiny zipper pulls and I wanted freedom.

More than a battle of legs and beaks, it was a battle of wills. Did I emerge victorious? You could say that, since I’m still around to tell the tale. But did I emerge unscathed? No, dear reader, I did not, as this tirade may hint at. My jacket’s zipper pulls were an unfortunate casualty of this war, a scar I still bear today.

So when I went to Burnaby Lake at the ass crack of dawn with a local photography group, I didn’t expect to heal such old, settled wounds. I thought I was over the typical horror movie plot of running for my life in the woods against an inhuman, hungry enemy.

After spending some time at the lake, photographing things and doing more squats than I should’ve — gotta get lowwww for those angles; next time I’ll pick a taller animal to shoot — I found… comraderie?? with these everyday menaces.

I witnessed them hiss and flap and peck at each other over birdseed, ruthless predators of the wild that they are.

Olympic level synchronized butt diving

But I also witnessed curiosity. They wanted to know if I had any food, of course, swimming and pitter-pattying up to me with half-cocked necks: the universal sign of, “Do you have anything for me?”

The answer was no because never feed wildlife, friends. But soon I found myself sitting down on the dock and geese coming to sit RIGHT BESIDE ME. A childhood fear, suddenly dispelled. They looked at me, maybe sniffed me if birds even sniff through their little beakies, and settled around me. Enjoying the sun, ducking into the water, cleaning their feathers, walking right by me.

I was one of them.

And together, on a dock, all being bitten by many unseen mosquitoes, we were all part of nature. Me, a little too much a part of nature for my liking, but nature nonetheless.

Until my phone buzzed with an Instagram notification, then, y’know, back to the grind.

But for one minuscule millisecond, I looked into that Canada Goose’s curious eyes and silently communicated through ancient channels deep in my brain… “I forgive you.”

I looked deeply into its eyes for another moment, absorbing its equally telepathic reply of… “Fuck you.”

Respect the Goose. 🇨🇦

This guy was pitter-pattying VERY quickly. He had places to be and kids to attack.

All images shot with my Fujifilm X-T2 and 55-200mm and 15-45mm lenses with Velvia film simulation.

Burnaby Lake Park, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada — July 6, 2024