Posts tagged canada geese
Why wildlife photographers cannot get away with doping…
Thanks followers!! Everybody flap your wings now!
Just goofin’ around with geese!
Jockeying for position under mom’s tail-feather umbrella, these goslings are likely weathering their first storm at just a few days old. When the goslings are born they are bright yellow with a dark beak, looking more like baby ducks. They are able to swim as soon as they are born and the adults will lead them to safety in open waters. As the weeks pass, their yellow down darkens and changes to gray. By nine weeks old their plumage has significantly changed and their flight feathers have grown in, and they begin to look more like adult birds with a jet-black head and neck, white cheeks and chinstrap, tan breast, and brown back. Interestingly, the adult molt (when a bird loses it’s flight feathers) takes place during the summer and lasts for about 25-40 days. The adults regrow their flight feathers are about the same time the goslings grow theirs.
Next spring, the geese will migrate to the same area they were born and the young ones will join flocks with other young geese. They will begin to reproduce when they are two or three years old. In a healthy environment Canada Geese can live for twenty-five years.
Migrating Canada Geese make their Noisy Return!
I have a new article published on the MNN network if you care to give it a look-see (and maybe some love?) :-)
Yes is says I am the New Hampshire correspondent…even though I live in Montreal. :-)
They’re back…
Goofy Little Goslings!
This week was special as two of the Canadian Geese pairs who had been nesting on beaver “huts” at the marsh, hatched their goslings. Females usually lay 5-7 eggs, with each one taking more than a day to lay. They typically take a month to incubate and then 1-2 days for the baby to peck his way out of the egg. Goslings can see, walk and swim as soon as they are born and can dive and swim underwater more than 25 feet. From 6-9 weeks they will be able to take to the air as a family, however, generally only half the goslings will have survived.
When they are born they have pale yellow downy feathers and look like little ducks, but within a week they will turn a more familiar gray-brown. This little group was probably just a day old!
Goofy Little Goslings!
Goofy Little Goslings!
Goofy Little Goslings!
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