A Canada goose made friends with a few homeowners in Whitefish last week who were concerned for the seemingly lost, but sweet bird.  

"It was here about three days, and then decided to look around,” Mitzi Anderson said. “Went down to Stevens’ and then it hung around there for a couple of days, then it came back and showed up at Daniels’ next door and hung around there.” 

The bird looked like any other Canada goose, but this one was very tame. After Diana Stevens saw the goose flying near the driver's side of a vehicle leaving the Barkley Lane area, the bird followed her around for a couple days. 

"I was out there to get the mail. The goose saw me and so right away it starts following me and sticking right on my heels and squawking,” Stevens said. “So, I came down into the house, and it followed me down here to the back door and I thought, ‘Oh gosh, I feel so sorry for it.’” 

Stevens heard that if a goose loses its mate, it stays single forever and wondered if that was the case for this lone bird who appeared confused and lost. She surmised that a goose in that situation still needs friendship. 

Fortunately, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, while Canada geese do mate for life, which can be 10 to 25 years, they will seek out another partner should the first one die. They also do not look for a mate until they are 2 to 3 years old. 

The goose followed Stevens each time she was outdoors and frequently honked at her. She walked across the street and tried to coax her feathered friend to hang out in the nearby woods, a place where she thought the bird would be happy. 

“I turned around and headed back home, and we had to go around our barn up there where it couldn't see me, and then I ran all the way home,” Stevens recalled. “And sure enough, in about five minutes, here's this goose at our glass side door, here at the house, tapping on the window. Knock, knock, knock.” 

Stevens then traveled to the lake where she thought the bird could get a drink and perhaps see other geese. The goose got a drink and had a bit of a fight with another goose on the lake. 

"I chased that goose off and then I'm stuck with the goose again,” Stevens said.  

She even tried to see if the goose wanted to hang out with the neighbor’s chickens, to no avail. 

"The poor thing. I felt so sorry for it,” she said. “I wondered if maybe he had gotten hurt and wasn't right in his mind. It just acts like it's lonesome. 

“It's just a lost heart," she added. "It just wanted so much to just be right with me walking.”  

People in the neighborhood theorized about the goose and its behavior and did research. Was the bird male or female? Was it old or young? Healthy or ill? 

“I believe it was most likely hatched last June, because it does not look quite as big as other adults I have seen and not afraid, at all, of humans,” Kathy Pugh said. “I think it is someone's pet that escaped. I am aware that it is against the law to keep them as pets.”  

Pugh contacted Montana Wild Wings Recovery Center, a nonprofit that rescues and rehabs injured birds, but it could not accept a Canada goose. 

“There was nothing wrong with its legs or wings. It spent a good part of the afternoon looking through the window into the house,” Pugh added. “I hope it has a happy ending.”  

Meggie, Anderson’s Siamese cat, spent time at the same window, nose to nose with the goose through the pane of glass. They seemed to be kindred spirits. 

When the goose was chilling at her house, Anderson gave it water and a pile of Grape-Nuts, which the bird gobbled quickly. 

“It ate them up, but then I thought, ‘Well, might not be good for it,’” she said. “So, we decided I shouldn’t give it anymore.” 

The goose wandered around Anderson’s house for days. Sometimes, she’d think it had gone, only to be surprised to see it appear from behind the house. 

The women said a neighbor eventually took the goose to City Beach -- although it is not recommended to relocate a goose -- and they haven’t seen it since. 

“If you had seen this goose and it followed you around, you know how I feel,” Stevens said. “Bless its heart.”