And geese, too. This morning, a veritable flock of Gadwalls -- eight, in four pairs -- were bobbing along not far from shore when they were spotted by an identically-sized flock of Brant geese. One of the geese was a very aggressive male who evidently thought the ducks were too close to the wall where the geese like to dine. So he rallied his troops and swam out to chase them away. This worked until the geese had covered about half the distance to the ducks; then the other geese started peeling off, first two, then three, then two more, until the leader noticed he was alone and turned back, too. This happened five times. None of the other geese, it seemed, were interested in this fight. Finally another group of six geese came along; now the geese had numbers on the ducks and headed out for battle.

Then along came a huge swell sent up by a fast ferry. These may be birdbrains, but they're not stupid. Any bird swimming across this swell this close to shore risked getting lifted and smashed into the wall. So suddenly, everyone's madly paddling parallel to the swell, one long line of geese near the wall and a shorter line of ducks farther out. There are five of these waves altogether; when they're over, the geese, which have bigger feet, are about twenty yards farther south than the ducks. So, still in a line, they just keep going to the next pier, as though that was the plan all along. And the ducks are left behind bobbing on the waves and wondering what the hell just happened here.