Uninvited guests can wreak havoc at a party. No Kansas wheat farmer
wants to provide a never-ending buffet for tens of thousands of geese.
But, for several weeks, migrating geese have evidently seen an
all-you-can-eat buffet sign flashing green from the heavens. And they
say, "Don't mind if we do!"
Farmers try to send them on
their way by honking their horns and making more drive-bys than a police
cruiser trying to clean up a shady neighborhood. But about as soon as
farmers mosey on down the road to the next location, the geese circle back for another taste of tender green wheat.
While hunters
might enjoy the influx of geese in Central Kansas, wheat farmers
prefer the feathered beasts find their buffet elsewhere, since they can
eat a young wheat field to bare ground faster than a teenage boy and his
friends can plow through a bag of chips.
We are just south of the Quivira National Wildlife Refuge. Thankfully, we don't have as many birds on our crop land as they host on the refuge. One of the sites I researched estimates that more than 800,000 ducks and geese visit the Refuge until severe weather
drives them southward to winter along the Gulf Coast and in Mexico. Being nearby when they lift off reminds me a bit of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds."
