The mallards are, I believe, back down to four, or maybe six; the rest moved on. But the male bufflehead went back for reinforcements; now there are two males and a female. And the wood duck I thought was just passing through also went out and found a mate, and now they're both here on my stretch of river, gliding around.

And therein lies the problem. Last spring, on the rocks by the Sanitation garage, a pair of geese had a family. They were very cute, the goslings, waddling into the river. This year they all came back and brought their cousins; there are a dozen of them, which I think means six nesting pairs. And boy oh boy, do they think they own this river.

They don't want the ducks to nest, though they seem willing to put up, bad-temperedly, with the mallards, who were also here last year. But the new guys, no way. I told you how the mallards feel about the buffleheads: not very warm. Well, the geese are even more aggressive about it. However, neither the wood ducks nor the buffleheads have been intimidated yet by the geese, who swoop through the air, land where they see the ducks swimming and swim right at them. The ducks swim at the geese, too, and they do this threading-in-and-out dance for awhile. Then the geese swim or fly away, their message delivered and answered.

The real problem, though, is this: in this area the river is very urban, meaning it's in vertical concrete banks. It's also gotten so much cleaner over the years that it's full of waterfowl food. So it seems good in spring to north-flying ducks and geese. They land, swim around, find out there's plenty to eat, and establish this as territory. That works fine until they go looking around for a nesting site. The rocks the geese claimed are about the only place on this side for a couple of miles in each direction where you find a slope down to the water.

By the time the buffleheads and wood ducks figure this out, it will be very late in the season to go on and find another unclaimed territory. These pairs might not get to nest.

So I begin to wonder, how hard would it be to build platforms moored out in the middle of the strip of pilings that used to hold up the demolished pier? Small enough they wouldn't interest the geese, floating so they wouldn't get swamped as the tide changes? Maybe partly covered, for shelter during big storms? Would ducks use those, or do they want firmer ground?