LOOK UP: Wanda Himes of Campbelltown Road, Mount Jewett, was out
shoveling snow recently when she heard honking overhead, and look
up to see something unexpected – white geese.

“They weren’t brown,” Wanda tells us. “They were completely
white. The prettiest things I have ever seen against the blue
sky.”

“They were hollering. There was no doubt they were geese … that
was the first time I had ever seen white ones. They were just so
awesome.”

Wanda was wondering if anyone else has ever seen white
geese.

Her call intrigued us so we got on the web to see what we could
see about these white geese. Turns out they include the greater
snow goose, lesser snow goose and Ross’ goose.

According to this website, which was operated by a branch of the
Canadian government, the number of these geese has increased
dramatically over the past few decades.

Ross’ geese have increased from about 30,000 in 1965 to over
400,000 today. Greater snow geese numbered about 30,000 in 1965 and
today exceed 600,000.

Lesser snow geese have increased from about 1 million to 3
million during the same 30-year interval.

While we’ve certainly heard about damage caused by increasing
numbers of Canada geese, the same apparently is true of these white
geese. The over-population has become so bad that it is having a
devastating effect upon the habitat.

So that probably means we’ll be seeing more and more of these
white migrators. Keep your eyes peeled.

NOT NEW: Barbara Piscitelli tells us we were “more than 40 years
behind the times” in commenting on a “new” phrase – paradigm shift
– which has come into the vernacular.

She writes, “Check out wikipedia for a bit of information about
the term ‘paradigm shift.’ Here is the first sentence of their
entry: ‘Paradigm shift is the term first used by Thomas Kuhn in his
1962 book ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolutions’ to describe a
change in basic assumptions within the ruling theory of
science.’

“Today the term is in wide usage to describe new ways of
thinking that disrupt traditional ideas.”

We had heard the terms years ago, in conjunction with science
writings, but our comment was that it had recently become one of
those frequently used terms which pops us a lot of sudden – and
then seems to be everywhere!