I was corrected by a friend who tries to save me from embarrassing faux pas.
Regardless of what you call them, I think those geese are elegant looking in flight. Even on the ground they walk around with a confident air and are presentable in their formal blacks and greys.
Most of our geese (I live twenty miles from Chicago.) are gone now but some, of course, stay the entire winter. Locals feed them at a small park close-by where Canada Geese honk on and off during even the coldest weather.
Their “honk-honk” and an answering “honk-honk” tell me that a pair of Canada Geese are up there flying, even if I can’t locate them right away this morning.
I hear and identify many birds by their calls and songs. I don’t always see them. The high-pitched, sharp, location call of a Cardinal is easy to identify. Everyone knows the “caw-caw” of a crow.
The chirps of house sparrows are omnipresent. (What a big word for such a small bird. And, perhaps I should reserve that word for the presence of the deity.)
This morning at dawn I first heard, then saw two Canada Geese flying over my house. They lifted my spirit somehow and made me feel part of something bigger than myself. I wasn’t alone at dawn. Others were waking, taking flight and honking for life.