Robert Legnani looked out one of the windows of the home he shares with Peg Jepsen on Monday and his eyes lit up.

“He’s there!” Mr Legnani announced. “Right on time, he’s coming for some food,” he added, laughing.

Mr Legnani and Ms Jepsen were adopted by a Canada goose a few months ago. They’ve named him Bagot, and call to him just like they imagine geese would call to each other — “be-gaaaht! be-gaaght!”

Bagot began appearing around Ms Jepsen’s house in October. He was alone from the start, the couple said.

Having lived in the historic Colonial at 16 South Main Street for years, Ms Jepsen has regularly been visited by geese who visit the adjacent Ram Pasture. Flocks of geese are seen year-round on the meadow that was once part of the town’s original common land. Nearby residents get used to the visitors to their yards, and just accept it as part of living near Ram Pasture and its body of water, Hawley Pond.

What was unusual about Bagot, Ms Jepsen said this week, was that he arrived alone, and stuck around through the winter.

“We saw him, and his lame leg and bent wing, and we noticed the flock of other geese not going near him,” Ms Jepsen said. “In noticing him and this action, we have become his friend.”

It’s unusual that a goose is on its own. During the year, according to [naviga:u]allaboutbirds.org[/naviga:u], they associate in large flocks. They mate for life, “with very low ‘divorce rates,’” the website mentions, “and pairs remain together throughout the year.”

After appearing on his own — and sticking around, with no one else joining him — Ms Jepsen and Mr Legnani reached out to Carolee Mason, Newtown’s Animal Control Officer (ACO), for advice.

“She suggested feeding food that would help him heal, especially cracked corn,” said Ms Jepsen. Bagot has his own supply now, a large jar just inside the back door that Ms Jepsen reaches for once a day.

“We were initially feeding him three times a day,” she said. Now Bagot gets one feeding each day, around late afternoon. If Ms Jepsen does not head to the edge of Hawley Pond to feed him, Bagot goes looking for her.

One can almost imagine Bagot tapping his foot, waiting for Ms Jepsen to emerge from the house with his meal.

“If she’s not outside, he’ll go to the same spot,” Mr Legnani said, pointing to the southern side of a barn located between the house and pond. “He looks toward the western side of the house, just waiting for her.”

Although he does not allow Ms Jepsen or Mr Legnani to get too close to him, a tentative friendship seems to have formed between the waterfowl and the two humans who regularly call out to or talk to him.

The snow-rain mix last weekend kept their friend away for a few days, but Ms Jepsen and Mr Legnani were not too concerned. Bagot had adopted an area at the end of a small stream that feeds into the pond as his home. Heavy brush provides cover, and the stream rarely freezes, the couple said.

“That’s where he hangs out,” Mr Legnani said Monday afternoon.

Canada geese, also according to allaboutbirds.org, prefer to nest near water. They prefer spots from which they can have a fairly unobstructed in many directions. In addition, mowing and maintaining lawns down to a water’s edge is an open invitation to Canada Geese. Bagot made a natural choice when he found, and then stayed along, Hawley Pond.

Within a day of the snow and rain stopping last weekend, Mr Legnani had spotted fresh footprints in the snow heading right to a spot where Ms Jepsen often leaves seeds for Bagot.

The couple’s efforts, according to Carolee Mason, may have saved the goose’s life. The ACO was concerned because of the bird’s injuries, she said March 13. She immediately recalled speaking with Ms Jepsen a few months ago. She had hoped, she said this week, to catch the then-unnamed goose and get it to a wildlife rehabilitator.

“After she called me, we tried to get it,” Ms Mason said. “It can’t fly away, because of that injured wing, but it can run. We couldn’t get it.

“I’ve talked to wildlife people, and especially when geese have two good legs and there’s a pond right there, you’re probably not going to catch them,” she added.

She had suggested cracked corn because “the more they have, the more they can hold in the heat,” the ACO explained. Had Ms Jepsen and Mr Legnani not been feeding Bagot during the winter, the goose would probably have died.

“Geese had it easy this year,” Ms Mason said. “We didn’t have a lot of snow. They usually have a very hard time during the winter.”

Nevertheless, his injury would have made it difficult, if not impossible, for Bagot to find food on his own, Ms Mason expects.

“There’s no big deal to give them a little bit of help, a little boost,” she said. “I’m glad she’s doing it. She probably helped that thing survive for the winter.

“And now, we’re heading into good weather. There’s nothing wrong with being a goose at Ram Pasture.”