After a mother goose was hit and killed while crossing the road in front of Shannon Lyne's Langley home in the 4300-block of 240th Street, Lyne put up signs asking motorists to slow down.
"Please slow down! Geese crossing," one read.
Several weeks later, Lyne was pleased to report most people in the North Otter neighbourhood where she lives are respecting the request.
"Every single time a sign falls down, they stop their car, they get out, they pick up the sign," Lyne told the Langley Advance Times.
"One of the teachers [at a nearby school] at one point in time saw the geese starting to walk down our driveway. She stopped her car in the middle of the road and scurried the geese back to the pond."
"The entire North Otter community is watching these geese."
Geese cross 240th Street in Langley's North Otter neighbourhood where home made signs have gone up urging motorists to slow down. Most have. pic.twitter.com/onIaZhFKjS
— Langley Advance Times (@LangleyTimes) July 4, 2024
Lyne said families of Canada geese have been regular visitors to her home for more than 10 years, ever since a drainage pond was installed in the front yard.
"We have the same families of geese that return to our property, every single year, and they have their babies. They teach their babies to fly, and they come back again the next year."
"They are so adorable," Lyne said of the baby geese.
"It's like a cartoon character, with their feet, like pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat. Everything about them is just heartwarming."
But with blueberry fields nearby, the parents will take their offspring across the road "once the babies start to get a little more adventurous."
In all the years the families have been visiting Lyne's home, there was never an accident, until this year, when a driver hit and killed a mother goose on the road, around the beginning of June.
"So the dad and the babies are at the road trying to figure out, is mom coming back? Because geese mate for life," Lyne recalled.
"We've never lost one before to traffic, but we did this time."
In addition to putting up hand-made signs on temporary stands to alert drivers about the geese, and ask them to slow down, Lyne has asked the Township of Langley to install official geese crossing warning signs, similar to those in other municipalities, like Chilliwack.
"The community will be very happy and supportive of it," Lyne predicted.
"I've actually even had Amazon packages sent to me [by supportive people] with geese crossing signs, triangular yellow signs for me to put up, but I don't know if I'm legally allowed to do that on the side of the road, [to] put them down with posts."
As for the two visiting families of geese, they will be soon be moving on.
"One [group] is ready to fly. They'll be flying [away] probably within the next week and a half, and the other ones are quite a bit smaller So, they're about another four weeks out. And then they'll go away for a while."