Lonely Goose Wearing Out His Welcome

First there is the eerie whooshing noise. Then it’s too late.

His neck is oddly low, his tongue sticking out, his back arched.

Honky Tonk, the heartbroken but cantankerous Canada goose, is already in battle frenzy, heading for an unsuspecting pedestrian walking along the Ventura Harbor docks.

He won’t kill, but will embarrass: Imagine running from 15 pounds of fiercely focused feathers and well-aimed webbed feet.

“The goosie sticks his tongue out and chases us,” said 4-year-old Megan Tryon, who lives on Dock A. “He goes honky.”

Although he’s lived at the harbor for at least two years, Honky Tonk’s troubles began a year ago. One morning, dockside residents say, his lifelong mate was simply gone. He’s been a different bird ever since.

“They were a cute couple. We used to call them George and Gracie. I think he’s still waiting for her to return,” said longtime harbor resident Big Frank Younce, 59. After all, Canada geese mate for life.

At first, Honky Tonk just spent hours honking forlornly at his watery reflection. Then spring came.

The territorial waterfowl began lying in wait behind boats and ambushing residents, dive-bombing strollers and, a few weeks ago, he bit someone’s mother-in-law in the rump.

“He’s been on the warpath,” said Linda Kelley, who lives on a 41-foot sailboat. “He really gets bent out of shape. . . .He gets that look in his eyes.”

Honky Tonk has plenty of other names. Residents--who aren’t sure he’s male, but aren’t about to peek--call him Couscous Goose, Goosie Lucy and even Gracie Goose. But some are thinking of calling him pate if he doesn’t change his ways.

Younce is one of the waddling warrior’s few remaining defenders.

Shortly after Honky Tonk’s mate disappeared, the tormented bird set up camp for several months on Younce’s motor boat. He flocked with Mr. Myrtle, Big Frank’s Muscovy duck, and they shared their favorite meal: dog kibble and whole wheat bread.

“He hung out and molted,” said Darlene Younce. “He was very well-behaved. We felt so bad for the heartsick goose.

“But he sure could honk, that silly goose,” she added. “I’d have to get up in the middle of the night and swat him with a TV Guide.”

Getting back into the dating game isn’t easy for a widower goose, according to Pete Triem, a volunteer with Wildlife Care of Ventura County. “Although there’s probably a loose goose around somewhere that he can persuade, the field is pretty narrow,” Triem said. “He’ll have to find a widow or a young one. It’s always a problem. Geese aren’t philanderers.”

Wildlife Care is looking to relocate Honky Tonk with another flock of geese, because Honky Tonk, it appears, won’t leave on his own accord.

“I think he just doesn’t want to freeze his buns off in Canada,” said Wally Murdaugh, whose dockside tomato crop was reduced to a collection of pitiful nubs by the avenging fowl. “Why leave sunny Ventura?”

Honky Tonk isn’t supposed to be in Ventura in the first place, said Earl Lauppe, a wildlife biologist with the state’s Department of Fish and Game, adding that Canada geese tend to stay inland, where they can find abundant supplies of green grass and fresh water during their annual winter treks to Southern California.

“He’s stuck all alone, which is probably why he spends so much time looking at his own reflection,” Lauppe said. “He’s probably very lonely.”

And in this season of raging hormones and instinctive courting rituals, Honky Tonk is particularly melancholy--and bitter.

“It’s springtime and he’s probably getting his territory ready in the hopes that a mate may come by soon,” Lauppe said. “But the chances of that happening are very slim. The geese have already flown home.

“Poor goose.”