Birds of a feather cross a roundabout together

It has taken some motorists and pedestrians a little time to get used to the new Smart Street configuration and roundabouts near Memorial Hospital.

Others have caught on right away.

During a recent meeting on the second floor of the E. Blair Warner building, Dr. Dale Patterson, director of the Memorial Family Residency Program, and Vickie Alber, the program’s practice manager and administrator, noticed a confused driver approach the intersection of North Michigan and Bartlett streets.

“As we were talking, we noticed that a car had turned the wrong way into the roundabout. So we started watching the traffic,” Dr. Patterson said.

Motorists stopped, and the car quickly turned back to the appropriate direction.

That’s when more than a dozen geese entered the picture.

“We saw a group of geese on the sidewalk that was walking in a near straight line headed for the intersection,” Alber recalled. “I was a little worried as I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, they’re going to get hit!’’”

But the geese continued down the sidewalk and onto the crosswalk just like they were supposed to – if they had been people, that is.

“A person had just crossed before them, so the yellow lights were actually flashing as they started across the street,” Dr. Patterson said. One by one, one right after the other, the geese entered the crosswalk.

“We started laughing and I thought to grab my phone and started recording. The lights shut off before I got my phone going, but it was unbelievable how the geese followed the marking through the crosswalk,” he said.

Patterson and Alber taped the nearly two-minute goose walk that ended with the last goose flapping its wings as it jumped up to the sidewalk with a bus quickly approaching.

“We laughed as it was so purposeful,” Alber said. “It was hilarious.”

With 116,000 views, 1,600 shares and 2,000 likes, Beacon’s video of the orderly gaggle of geese is getting a lot of attention. Take a look for yourself!