When Del Webb Corp. dotted their Sun City landscape with ponds, golf water hazards, and detention ponds in the late ’90s, there was probably an expectation that at least a few Canadian Geese would be attracted to Huntley.
The large number of water sites has actually attracted thousands of these migratory birds to the Sun City community. Hundreds, sometimes thousands, of geese can often be seen on Wildflower Lake, Whisper Creek Golf course water hazards, and ponds and wetlands from Route 47 to the Regency Square fire station and at Route 47 and Oak Creek Parkway.
While the geese are enjoying socializing all over the Sun City community, however, resident reaction to them is mostly negative, even though the large birds stay away from neighborhoods and yards.
Whether friend or foe, geese are almost a hallmark of Sun City property. (Photo by Chris LaPelusa/Sun Day)
“They are messy and a nuisance,” said Jean Huismann of Nl0. “I went out to my mailbox recently, and my box was covered with a large dropping, which I had to clean up before I could get into the box and get my mail. They leave too many messes behind wherever they go.”
Hank Holz agrees.
“Walking around Wildflower Lake on the path has become difficult because there are so many messes,” said Holz, who also lives in NIO. “The droppings also make it nearly impossible to walk your dog there. The geese are the reason we have no ducks in our community any more. And they stop traffic if they get near roads. There were nearly 200 geese on Freeman Road near the pond at Route 47 one time recently, and they stopped traffic for a long time.”
Holz’s wife, Barbara, said the geese caused an incident at Wildflower recently when they caused a young boy to fall off his bicycle on the lake’s path.
Don Noren (N 27), owns a lake house in Eagle River, Wisconsin, and spends a lot of time in the state.
“There is a popular goose gathering place near Horicon, Wisconsin, a few miles southwest of Fond du Lac,” he said. “It’s an area of wetlands and lakes. I’ve seen thousands of them there often, the noise sounds like a whole bunch of people laughing. It seems to be one of their stopping points on their migrating way north or south.”
Noren’s wife, Sonja, related a humorous recent incident while in her car.
“I was in a long line of traffic in Sun City, waiting for a group of geese to cross the road,” she said. “They don’t move very fast on land. All of a sudden, a man tried to speed things up by getting out of his car and yelling at them. The geese didn’t respond or scatter, they just kept slowly crossing the road. It was really funny.”
“I was driving on Algonquin Road near Frank Road in Lake in the Hills recently, when a goose flew into the side of my car, denting it,” she said. It was kind of scary to notice they can do that.”
The funniest goose-people encounter came from Don Hoppensteadt, however.
“At my former summer home in Burlington, Wisconsin, I took a break from a deck-building job and I made myself a martini drink. I came out on my open porch to drink it. As I raised it to my mouth, a goose dropping plopped into my drink. I just stood there laughing for a long time.” The scariest goose-people encounter story comes from Janice Anderson (N12). It occurred a few years ago in an Arlington Heights Park shortly after she and her husband moved to Sun City.
“I was walking on a circular path around a pond, when a goose suddenly flew at me, hissing and flapping his wings. It came down on my head and I couldn’t see, I kept shaking my head to knock the bird off. He finally flew away. I wasn’t hurt, but it was scary. I later learned there was a nest in the area, and Mother Goose was protecting her turf.”
