They rarely miss - but I have seen it happen. One did just what you
described and then slid and flopped to a stop after touchdown due to a thin
layer of new ice on the pond. It almost looked embarrassed when it righted
itself and looked around, like it was checking to see if any of its buddies
saw the landing. Can you imaging the jeering? They probably call a landing
like that "pulling a human".

JimC

"Tune2828" wrote in message
...
While biking through the park today a few hundred canadian geese were
flying
around the half frozen lakes. These guys are big, noisy, and clunky
birds -
the aviary equivalent of a 747.

I stopped and focused on one as it was decending to the ground - it's body
was
slightly nose low, wings spread, planning his landing point.

Then 5-10 feet above the ground he leveled off and slowly pitched up, got
slower and slower, wings out a bit more, pitched up higher, hit the ground
without even a stumble and started walking.

A perfect flare and landing!