"It's going to be cold. There's going to be poop," she says. "But I'm here. I'm freezing my butt off and my feet are sticking to the ground."

Radonsky is glad she came. It's like life on a farm, she says--"you breathe in the aroma."

She also came because she's a friend of Marilyn Z. Wellons, one of the most vocal fans of the fowl. When Wellons first saw geese by the Charles River, she thought it was funny. The long-legged birds looked out of place.

Now the geese are no laughing matter. Wellons and others have founded the Friends of the White Geese, a collection of a dozen or so environmental activists who fear that the geese are falling victim to foul play.

For months now, members of the group have handed out "Mother Goose News" fliers and written letters to the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC), which manages Boston-area parks.

When a goose died this summer, they alleged it was killed by a dog--evidence, they say, that the geese need protection. The Friends offered to pay the MDC for an autopsy of the bird.

But Little Brook had already buried the goose, and when they dug it up, the body was too decomposed for a postmortem.

The Friends of the White Geese's crusade for the web-footed birds has, at times, turned nasty. They have called MDC officials "sickos" and accused them of corruption. They have branded State Representative Jarrett T. Barrios '90 (D-Cambridge) as one of the leading enemies of the geese and have called for the MDC "to humanely dispose" [sic] of Barrios.