> I want to know how the mother goose knows to peck at the patrol car. <
I’ll bet the cop had fed the geese in the past, so the cop was already known to that particular goose.
As ridiculous as this story might seem, it is quite possible. Ive spent a lot of time with both domestic and wild geese and can tell you that they are definitely much smarter than most other birds. How much is innate ability versus learned due to their relatively long lives Im not sure. Domestic and wild urban dwelling geese absolutely know we humans have, well, its hard to know exactly how they understand us but, they know we have “powers” or special abilities. Even the ones that don’t have the personality traits, and they do develope individual personalities, to normally interact with people do learn from watching humans and those that have flock peers that interact with humans learn that much more quickly. Weather this officer had interacted with them or other officers regularly park their I cant say, I do know that geese absolutely understand that those big shiny boxes that move around contain humans. She may have actually knocked on other cars looking for assistance if she is an mature goose who has had a great deal of human interaction and just kept it up until someone had enough time and interest to investigate.