The goose arrived on the roof of MercyView Regional Hospital sometime in the last week of March. No one is sure exactly when. By the time anyone noticed her, she had already laid four eggs in a shallow scrape of gravel between two air handling units, six stories above the emergency room entrance on Cleveland's near west side.

The first person to notice was a respiratory therapist named Denise Whitlock, who steps out onto a small smoking-permitted balcony on the fifth floor for ten minutes between shifts. The balcony looks across a gap of about twelve feet to the lower roof where the goose had settled.

Whitlock does not smoke. She goes out for the air.

"I saw her sitting there and I thought, well, that's a problem," Whitlock said. "There is no water up there. There is no food. She had picked the worst possible place."

Canada geese nest on rooftops more often than most people realize. Flat gravel roofs near water mimic the open islands the species prefers, and the elevation deters most ground predators. The problem is that the goslings, once hatched, cannot fly. They have to get down somehow, and most rooftop nests end badly.

Whitlock looked up the local Audubon chapter on her phone that night. They referred her to a wildlife rehabilitator in Lakewood named Tom Brescia, who has been doing rooftop goose extractions for eleven years.

The hatch began on April 23. Whitlock saw the first crack from the balcony at six in the morning and texted Brescia, who was already in his truck.

Brescia explained the timeline. Canada goose eggs hatch in roughly twenty-eight days. He could not move the eggs without risking the nest. The legal and practical thing to do was wait, monitor, and be ready to intervene the day the goslings hatched.

Whitlock told the hospital's facilities supervisor, a man named Ray Polotti, who has worked at MercyView since 1998. Polotti, who keeps a bird feeder in his backyard and is known among his crew as a soft touch for any animal that wanders into a parking garage, agreed immediately.

For the next six weeks, an informal protocol took hold. Polotti or one of his deputies climbed to the roof every other day, set down a shallow pan of water at the far edge, and retreated. Whitlock checked the nest from her balcony each shift and texted Brescia with updates.

The goose, whom the night-shift nurses began calling Doris, accepted the arrangement. She left the nest twice a day for short periods, ate weeds from the gravel margins, and drank from the pan. The four eggs remained intact.

The hatch began on April 23. Whitlock saw the first crack from the balcony at six in the morning and texted Brescia, who was already in his truck.

By noon, all four goslings were out, wet and unsteady. By two, they were dry and walking.

The extraction itself took less than an hour. Brescia, in a soft hat and long sleeves, approached the nest slowly, herded Doris into a corner with a panel of plywood, and lifted the four goslings into a padded carrier. Doris hissed but did not strike. Polotti carried the carrier down the service stairs. Brescia drove the family to a retention pond in the Metroparks system, less than two miles away, where a small flock of resident Canada geese was already established.

Doris, released at the water's edge, hesitated for perhaps thirty seconds. Then she walked into the pond and her goslings followed.

Brescia waited until the family had joined the larger flock, which accepted them without incident. He stayed another hour to be sure.

Back at the hospital, Whitlock returned to the balcony at the end of her shift. The gravel where the nest had been was empty. Polotti had already swept up the eggshells.

"It is a little quieter out here now," she said. "I miss her."

The hospital is considering placing a small wooden sign on the roof for next year, marking the spot. Polotti has been asked, in the meantime, to leave a pan of water out through the spring. He has agreed.