Roughly 47,000 followers at Dodger Stadium hardly observed at first when a goose made a tough touchdown in shallow proper area throughout the eight inning of Wednesday’s NL Division Series recreation between the Dodgers and Padres.
But then the stadium’s digital camera operators noticed the chicken and blasted its picture onto the stadium’s jumbotron display, drawing hoots, laughter and cheers from the crowd.
Fox Sports TV broadcasts zoomed in on the disoriented goose, its head swiveling side-to-side because it sat in the outfield, as one play-by-play announcer commented, “Ducks are very aggressive. I don’t know if you know that. They’re very aggressive.”
Another commentator requested, “Is that a duck?”
After one thing like a wild-goose chase, the grounds crew wrapped the huge chicken in a towel, positioned it right into a plastic recycling bin and retreated again into the Dodgers dugout. The crowd cheekily booed, lamenting the finish of a break to an in any other case dismal inning for the Dodgers who trailed by two runs.
“Can confirm that the goose was safely released,” Nicole Singer, vp of public relations for the Dodgers, wrote in an e mail.
Video of the goose was broadly circulated on social media, the newest addition to the entertaining sports activities sub-genre of wild animals interrupting competition. Yet laughter apart, many customers took to Twitter to ask, is the bird okay? And why did the chicken land on the area in the first place?
Travis Longcore, president of the Los Angeles Audubon Society and adjunct professor at UCLA, recognized the wild chicken as a greater white-fronted goose, which he mentioned are an unusual sight all through most of the 12 months in city Los Angeles.
Unlike different species akin to Canada geese, which have made properties at parks all through Los Angeles County, the higher white-fronted geese are solely seen throughout sure seasons of the 12 months throughout migration.
They are identified to migrate from the arctic tundra in Alaska, the place they breed in the summer season, and in the fall, fly south alongside the Pacific, settling in the wetlands in the Central Valley of California and even farther south into Mexico, a flight sample the chicken has carried out for 1000’s of years, Longcore mentioned.
The chicken on Wednesday was seemingly following this migration sample when it turned distracted by the stadium lights that tower above Chavez Ravine, a typical impediment for migrating birds, he mentioned, whose analysis embody the results of sunshine air pollution on migratory birds.
Moments earlier than the goose landed on the area, followers had noticed a flock of geese, flying low, close to the stadium lights in a “V” formation.
About 80% of birds migrate at night time, preferring the cool of darkness, he mentioned. However lights from constructions akin to communication towers or skyscrapers, can entice birds, inflicting them to both land inside the brightness or circle it in flight.
Often occasions, gentle air pollution could cause birds to turn out to be disoriented and crash into structures, which contributes to the loss of life of tens of millions of migratory birds every year, in accordance to a bunch of conservationists behind World Migratory Bird Day, which befell final week. The initiative calls on cities to cut back gentle air pollution throughout peak migration intervals in May and October.
“It’s like they get into this zone, and they just won’t go back into the darkness,” Longcore mentioned.
Los Angeles, CA – October 12: A goose captured on the area throughout the eighth inning in recreation two of the NLDS between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022 in Los Angeles, CA.(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
He applauded the grounds crew’s use of a towel, which is vital in stopping injury to the birds feathers.
And though the Dodgers didn’t disclose how and the place they launched the chicken, Longcore hoped it was close to a physique of water.
Most white-fronted geese are noticed alongside our bodies of water, akin to lakes at MacArthur and Echo parks, at the L.A. River, or in the wetlands of Playa Del Rey or the South Bay, Longcore mentioned. The goose seemingly mistook the grass on the area as water, which might clarify its onerous touchdown, he mentioned.
Bird fans have been buzzing on-line in current weeks about giant flocks of higher white-fronted geese noticed all through coastal Southern California, mentioned Kimball Garrett, a researcher at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.
Garrett had been watching the recreation from his L.A. house when the unwitting goose interrupted play.
Geese are identified to fly collectively as households, but regardless that the chicken was separate from its group, Garrett mentioned he isn’t fearful about its survival.
He estimated the goose was a 12 months outdated, a grown grownup, given its white trim round its beak and black stomach, which implies it had made this migration south at least as soon as earlier than.
He assured that geese can survive alone, are sturdy fliers and are nice at discovering appropriate habitats, meals, in addition to different geese.
“They’re really good at finding each other,” Garrett mentioned, “And they can survive perfectly fine on their own.”
With October as a peak migration interval all through the world, each count on this gained’t be the final conflict of playoff baseball and migrating birds.
“I hope it reminds people that even here in Los Angeles, we are still part of the natural world,” Longcore mentioned, “And we can do things to do our part in making it safer for them.”