DAN WEISMAN

Staff Writer

SAN MARCOS - To Charlie Sherman, a longtime Twin Oaks resident, the two geese among his front pond's hundreds of birds are more than just beautiful creatures of nature. They are a love story.

"Nine years ago a few Canada geese came over and landed on the pond," said Sherman. "They all went north again except one. I guess he just fell in love."

Ah, love; sweet love. The Canada goose Sherman calls Harley because "every once in a while he'll fly around the pond like a Harley Davidson," met and apparently fell feathers-over-webbed-feet in love with Hazel, a large white domestic gander.

"I call her Hazel because she quacked a lot and reminded me of a girlfriend I had in London," said Sherman, a retired savings and loan official. "Harley will not leave her day or night. I guess it's just the nature of geese to mate for life. The eggs don't hatch because the Canada goose and domestic goose don't make fertile eggs. Hazel will sit there, and sit there, on the eggs and he'll watch out for her. They don't hatch and the two holler a lot.

"But he picked Hazel," Sherman added. "And no matter where she goes, he'll be right there with her."

Local audubon officials said it had to be a very uncommon pairing.

"I've really never heard of anything like that," said Wayne Pray, president of the 600-member Palomar Audubon Society, based at Escondido.

"Mallards, they'll breed with anybody," Pray said after a pregnant pause. "But Canada geese? That's a wild bird mating with a domestic house goose, a farm animal really. I'd say that's a story."

A lot of ducks cross-breed and that can be a problem for wildlife conservationists, said Doug Gibson, executive director of the San Elijo Lagoon Conservancy. But a Canada goose and San Marcos home-bred gander?

"Canada geese should all be gone by now," Gibson said. "I don't know if I could point to an example of that."

But there they float, Harley and Hazel, apparently together forever.

However, it wasn't always smooth sailing at first, Sherman said.

The Canadian visitor tried to get Hazel to come north with him the first spring he met her, Sherman recalled. He steered her down the Sherman's private road known as Easy Street.

"He took her all the way down the road but then she chased him back," said Sherman, who lives on a 7 1/2 acre hillside estate. "He recognized he had to stay and wouldn't leave after that."

Even if she wanted to head north, the domesticated Hazel can't fly. So now, the two geese in love frolic and follow each other on Sherman's idyllic pond that houses wild egrets, herons and several varieties of ducks.

And a little bit of Harley has rubbed off on Hazel as habits sometimes do between lifelong mates. Once docile and people-friendly, Harley's wild ways have changed Hazel a bit.

"She used to come real close to people but he made her wild," Sherman said. "He would stick his neck out and push her away from people."

Hey, it's a love affair. What else can you say?

Contact staff writer Dan Weisman at (760) 761-4414 or dweisman@nctimes.com.

7/23/01