Harbingers of spring

I just got back from walking my beasts, during which I saw the first flock of wild geese flying north. Already? 

Quite a sizable flock, upwards of three hundred birds in several Vs.

Saw another flock a few minutes later. Not as large as the first; perhaps two hundred birds in a large V with a few stragglers. I wonder what happens to stragglers that get separated from their flock?

Wild geese fascinate me, perhaps because there are no waterfowl on my home planet. No open bodies of water for them.

It got me thinking about the wild geese in T.H.White’s The Sword in the Stone. A marvelous book, marred only by its sequels; like those to Dune, the first Foundation trilogy, and the first Earthsea trilogy, they spoil rather than augment. I am sympathetic to Bill Watterson’s decision to quit while the reader still wanted more, though I miss Calvin and Hobbes.