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I work the night desk three nights a week, which means I get to look through hundreds or thousands of photos taken around the country and world on a given day. Today all of our stories on one of our nation pages were about Congress and abstract concepts, laws, etc. Since none of the stories had photos to accompany them, that gives me free reign to chose a standalone photo. I usually try to edit a photo that educates, brings to mind a social issue, has a news peg, but sometimes I look at photos like this and laugh.

There were two frames of the baby geese and the coyote. In one, the coyote looks pretty artificial. In the other, the coyote could be real. I chose to use this picture because of the mystery. You look at the picture and think, “Oh my gosh, the coyote is going to get those goslings!” And then you read the caption. It’s just plastic. Relief follows and maybe a smile. When you react or spend extra time with a photo, I’ve done my job.

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A gosling looks for food in front of a plastic coyote posted as a scarecrow on a lawn, in Tewksbury, Mass., Thursday, May 15, 2008. The plastic model is designed to scare away geese and keep them off the lawn, but appeared to have little effect on the young bird. (AP Photo/Mary Schwalm)