NORTHAMPTON — It seemed at first like a wildlife tragedy: “There are about 40 geese frozen in the ice on Paradise Pond. They are flapping their wings and trying to get out but can’t.”
That was the beginning of a post on a neighborhood listserv, which was then reposted by the popular Facebook page “Only in Northampton.” Comments soon flooded the post, with people suggesting that someone call for help. Among the suggestions: the Audubon Sanctuary, environmental police, MassWildlife, the “local rod and gun club,” the fire department, animal control, police — or Smith College President Kathleen McCartney herself.
“Maybe melting the ice with some propane heaters just enough so they can get out,” one poster suggested.
“Lots of thermoses with hot water to pour near them and a kayak. And bring an axe!” wrote another.
But what initially appeared to be a gruesome goose tale ultimately ended up being just a normal day for some Canada geese resting on a partially frozen pond.
Joe Rogers, the supervisor for MassWildlife’s Connecticut Valley District Office, said the reality of an entire flock of geese being frozen in a pond is highly unlikely. But Rogers received as many as seven calls about the geese on Friday morning, so he reached out to the Northampton Fire Department to see if they could check into the situation.
It turns out that the fire department had already received calls themselves, and had dispatched someone down to the pond at around 10 or 11 a.m., Rogers said.
Northampton Deputy Fire Chief Steve Vanasse said when he went to the pond, the geese didn’t appear frozen. And when the Gazette visited the scene at around 12:30 p.m. the geese were moving about freely, honking at one another in the 20-degree weather.
“We get calls every winter about ducks or geese, or something like that, frozen in the ice,” said H. Heusmann, a waterfowl biologist at MassWildlife’s field headquarters in Westborough. “Usually, it’s just birds sitting on the ice, and they’re not moving because it’s cold out, and they’re conserving energy.”
In his 49 years with the agency, Heusmann said he has only seen two or three birds get frozen in the ice. Last year, there were lots of calls about swans, he said.
Sometimes on a warmer day, a bird can land in a puddle that then freezes, sealing their breast feathers to the ice in the process, Heusmann said. When they take off, their feathers can stay stuck to the ice.
“But it’s very rare that you have the classic picture that you see where the bottom half is frozen in the ice and the rest of it isn’t,” Heusmann said.
Fueling concern about these particular geese, it appears, was a webcam that offers the world a live view of Paradise Pond from above — the geese clearly present as dots against the ice. Rogers said he asked one caller to get closer to the pond to see if the geese would move, but the caller was watching the drama — or lack thereof — unfold online.
“It’s one of the first times I’ve had to deal with something like that,” Rogers said of the internet speculation. Rogers did say, however, that it is a demonstration of how much people in the community care about wildlife. “There’s a lot of compassion in the local society.”
From a safety perspective, more concerning than the geese were the actions of the humans themselves. “Our concern was someone trying to rescue them,” Vanasse said.
Luckily, nobody made any ill-advised attempts — with axes or propane heaters, as commenters had suggested — to save the campus flock.
When asked whether this article might lead to fewer people calling about frozen birds in the future, Heusmann seemed doubtful.
“We get them from all over the state — and probably a half a dozen calls ever winter,” he said.
Dusty Christensen can be reached at dchristensen@gazettenet.com.