The name not withstanding, there is nothing noteworthy about Bird Poop Rock, a granite monolith surrounded by the water of Blue Heron Lake, a short walk from my home in the oak woodland foothills south of Yosemite National Park. It does, however, inch by inch, grow larger every day as the water level recedes due to an ongoing California drought.

What makes Bird Poop Rock stand out, though, is the predilection for birds to nest there. With water all around, and thus secure from terrestrial predators, the location would appear to be an ideal location for a ground-nesting bird to lay a clutch of eggs. 

Last year, a Killdeer put all her eggs in one basket on Bird Poop Rock. The serenity of that site did not last: Canada Geese, Mallards, Great-tailed Grackles, and turtles, too, decided to lounge on its warm surface throughout the day. It was not long before the avian horde had deposited a thick layer of waste all around (hence the name I christened it). The Killdeer nest met with an untimely destruction. Click here to read my account. 

This year, with the advent of spring, I had hopes that my Killdeer would return for another try, but Bird Poop Rock remained unoccupied. That is, until Easter Sunday, when a Canada Goose began nesting adjacent to where the Killdeer had laid their bets upon a future generation. My heartbeat quickened at the sight of this mother goose to be. The date had to be a good omen, wouldn’t you think? Moreover, the location would permit my observations from shore without disturbing the goose.

The goose dutifully sat on the nest each day, with her gander idling upon the water not far away. About a week later, I observed her standing over the nest, and caught a glimpse of five eggs nestled in a soft cushion of gray down feathers. A quick calculation of the time needed to lay five eggs, plus incubation, suggested a possible hatching date of May 9, Mother’s Day. Another good omen, I mused.

As that date neared, I would begin checking the status of the nest twice a day, in the morning and in the evening, so as to not miss a quintet of adorable little goslings breaking out of their shells. 

I pictured fuzzy yellow balls of goose down walking precariously across the Rock on wobbly, day-old legs; they would most certainly lose their balance and fall off the edge of their terrestrial world; they would drop two feet into the water with a splash for their first swim; then, exhausted from paddling to the nearby shore, they would fall asleep soundly with not a care in the world. All this I envisioned in my mind’s eye, and I didn’t want to miss it.

I can’t begin to imagine what it is like for a goose to spend over a month, alone and exposed to the elements, on an inhospitable surface like Bird Poop Rock. It would drive me stir-crazy. Indeed, that is exactly what I surmised had happened when I observed her shaking her head wildly one morning, like Don Quixote tilting at windmills, if you will. Take a look at the following video and see what you think:

It turns out that she had not gone mad. Taking a cue from the swallows that were jetting noisily all around the Rock, she was grabbing after a swarm of flying insects for nutrition.

On April 26, I observed the goose standing in shallow water on the edge of a nearby mud flat, next to the gander; they were bathing and preening their feathers. She seemed in no hurry to return to the nest.

Ok, I thought, give the gal a break; she needs a drink of water, and maybe something more substantial to eat than a few flying insects. It is not unusual for a goose to leave the nest, briefly, during the 28 days that she might be incubating her eggs. During the next three days, however, she was again absent from the nest when I came around. Had mother goose abandoned her clutch?

But wait! On April 30 she was back on the nest re-arranging the position of the eggs with her bill, while the gander remained on watch close by. Mother goose knows best, I surmised. What do I know?

A week later, however, on May 7, she was off the nest again, standing in the shallows with the gander. Likewise on the 8th; and on the 9th. One of the five eggs had somehow rolled (?) out of the nest, and lay on the edge of the Rock. The next day, it was gone. Oh my!

On May 11, as the sun was rising over nearby Revis Mountain, casting early morning light upon Bird Poop Rock, I saw what I had been hoping for: a partially opened egg shell. “Yes! Success,” I exclaimed quite audibly; luckily, no-one was around to hear my gush of excitement.

I triumphantly considered the sequence of events to come: by this evening, there would be three more eggs hatched; a proud mother goose would be hovering over her four offspring while they rested. In the morning I would see adorable, newly hatched goslings moving about. Having recovered from the exhausting effort of breaking out of their shells, they would assay their sea legs and forage for food.

It was not to be…I’m saddened to relate that the first hatchling never left its shell. None of the remaining three eggs ever hatched. Mother goose did not return to the nest.

What went wrong? Were the eggs not fertilized? And the goose, sensing no movement inside, abandoned the futile effort? Was it the first time for a young goose who did not know what to do? Or, was she an aging goose, lacking the energy to produce five eggs and then withstand the rigors of several days attending to a nest without food or water? Canada Geese have a generally successful nesting average, but in this instance, natural selection clearly had its thumb on the scale. 

From that day forward, mother goose blended in with the other geese residing around Blue Heron Lake, and I lost track of her. I wondered if, after this ordeal, she would try again this season. A week later, on a sunrise walk along the lakeshore, I noticed from afar a solitary figure on Bird Poop Rock. This is what I witnessed:

The contents of the four goose eggs were left to bake in the hot sun, and there they remain today as I write this report a month and a half later.

Bird Poop Rock may, in fact, not be the ideal place for a bird to nest. It certainly was not the place for me to dream about photographing day-old goslings.

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