Thanks a lot for your prompt reply. I was thinking to solicit help from the volunteers to catch the birds (with the actual catching). Getting the birds familiar with them sounds great, although I can’t imagine they could come feed them more often than on the week-ends. Also, can you please suggest where I can buy nets from? A google search showed me only “fly-into” nets. Also, what kind of image angle would most help you determine more about the injury?

I can’t decide if catching them would be very easy or very difficult ) There is the flock of 20 geese nearby and including them in the feeding would cause a mayhem that would make the geese less alert. It is very likely that we won’t be able to exclude them, if we are seen feeding the two, in which case they might stay together on the edges of the gaggle or separate, which means we would have to “mark” somehow the healthy mate to recognize it.

So far I have been feeding them very close to the water as I am doing it after dark, most days, and very “discretely” so they rest of the gaggle doesn’t see us. Feeding all geese during the daytime, and especially training them to come further from the water (i.e. in the parking lot) might prompt someone to come out of the neighboring properties and invite me to leave… But, once I find the volunteers, we can work on a game plan.

I believe the pond does not have an aeration fountain and it has a membrane on the bottom. If they are out of food, that would not be a big problem, as I can feed them every day seeds, poultry pellets and lettuce or anything else needed. The pond is lit at night, which might deter predators, although there are dark places for them to sleep. What puzzles me is that the other geese spend some nights on the pond, but not every night. I imagine, if there were a predator around, they would not spend a single night here again. I have no remedy to the danger of falling though the ice, but I was wondering if the pond freezing over would mean a sure death, in that they would be surrounded by below-freezing temperature in the absence of the water.

Please advise on the nets and marking of the mate (I’d rather not just spray-paint it and also frighten it), and the angle of the picture that would be most helpful.

Many thanks again.

Nelly