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While Lake Oswegans haven’t always been considered especially sympathetic to the plight of disabled migrants with no fixed housing, area residents were nonetheless shaken by the recent passing of one such transplant long embraced by this tight-knit community for her grace and resilience. At an impromptu celebration of life held earlier this month at the lakeshore swim platform of event producer Della Shanley, more than 20 neighbors gathered around the prostrate body of Princess Collette to pay their respects to the wild Canada goose laid in repose while her lifemate, Duke Featherstone, floated solemnly nearby.
Though a foreign émigré of shadowy origins, the comings and goings of Princess Collette were hardly undocumented. For Facebook page “Fowl Relationships on Oswego Lake,” Shanley has spent years chronicling highlights from the waterfront soap opera as they unspool a few feet outside her home office. She knows what the wild goose knows. She goes where the wild goose goes.
Since first noting the majestic creature with the broken wing paddling over from the far side of the lake amid the annual mini-migration six springs ago, Shanley worried over Collette’s isolation from harshly dismissive fellow geese, thrilled when she won the affections of the largest waterfowl on the lake, and rooted onward the health of their five surviving goslings. And, when the Princess turned up alone one evening, floating to Shanley’s dock with good wing dragging low in the water, she sprang to action.
Born into a hunting family taught to respect nature red in tooth and claw, Shanley ordinarily maintained a strict distance from even favored waterfowl. But the Princess had so obviously been badly injured that a neighboring veterinarian helped Shanley bring the bird into a medical facility where X-rays soon determined BB gun fragments had broken her wing and left five pellets inside the body. Alas, though a quickly crowdfunded surgery was initially deemed successful, Princess’ internal injuries proved too traumatic and she succumbed to heart failure even as lakeside residents assembled a shelter and assigned volunteers to bring food and antibiotics.
Though crestfallen, Shanley hopes Collette’s violent end would not overshadow the undying spirit of togetherness she imparted to her chosen home nor the loved ones left behind. After all, what’s bad for the goose must be tragic for the gander. “Geese, male and female, stick together no matter what,” Shanley explains. “Ducks mate for the season, but geese mate for life. Duke has to care for the goslings now—day in, day out—while they’re just learning to fly. He swims with them everywhere, and he keeps searching for his Princess. There’s a different chirp geese use when they’re looking for one another, and we hear Duke out on the water honking every morning.…
“This magnificent goose had reinvented herself above all odds. She found her mate, she had goslings, and she was in love! She had so much going for her, finally, and someone killed her. That breaks my heart.”
See the rest of Willamette Week’s Best of Portland 2026 here!
