Visiting friends in a condo complex on the West Side, Marge and Sergei found this duck sitting comfortably in a water sculpture. It was quite content to pose for Sergei - as long as, it seemed, he showed off her 'better side'. 
The goose was alone - not usual for a goose - and it seemed distressed - panting the way geese pant when thirsty, looking around in alarm, and, most significantly, not moving.
Marge got water in a paper cup from Spritzers coffee shop and, trying to avoid frightening the goose, she pushed the cup through the fence and set it in the grass. Then she continued her ramble.
A week later the bird was still there - and that is really was injured. Marge and Sergei decided the right thing to do was to call the animal shelter. (Point of order: turns out one calls animal control not the animal shelter).
A very responsible animal controller arrived shortly thereafter, survey the situation, agreed the animal was injured and explained that she would leave the bird in the field.
"We tend not to take injured wildlife unless they're close to death. This one, while it is injured - looks like she has broken her leg - is in pretty good shape."
Marge and Sergei kept an eye on the goose through the rest of the summer and, indeed, she was in pretty good shape.
Then last week, more than six months after the first sighting, they noticed the goose is still there, still occupying the same corner of the same baseball field. And she's still injured although now other geese keep her company.
The injured bird appears to leave the field as, many-a-time during Marge's rambles, the bird is nowhere to be seen. Perhaps it joins it feathered friends on Crown Beach for a little beach combing?
The pictures below convey a sense of the 'life style' that has developed. Note how the mobile geese stand sentry over the immobile goose.
Apparently, this animal can cover a lot of ground and feed herself adequately using this grazing posture.
Ain't nature wonderful?
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