Wild geese - Canada geese, I think - are spending some time in a local park in Dublin at the moment. There's a football field which is built up on a plateau, and people walk around it on a path below; I went up on it a week or so ago and saw a huge flock - maybe 150 - of the geese; they were there for the next few days, but I haven't been back; don't want my dog to bother them.

In Irish terms, by the way, the phrase 'The Wild Geese' refers to the aristocrats who fled Ireland in the 1600s - as Yeats wrote:



Was it for this the wild geese spread

A grey wing upon every tide?

These particular wild geese abandoned Ireland in a tactical retreat - famously leaving thoroughbred horses dancing riderless on the quays with silver-decorated bridles jingling - and spread across Europe looking for help which they never got. Hugh O'Neill, one of their leaders, died of melancholy in Rome, I think; Red Hugh O'Donnell was allegedly poisoned by an English agent in Spain - there's another fabulous poem about him here: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/texts/redhugh.html

And here's an old poem we learned in school: http://www.bartleby.com/250/108.html