OT - Canada Geese gathering for flight south

[nestork]

I drove past Assiniboine Park here in Winnipeg this morning on the way to my sister's house for Thanksgiving dinner. They have some pretty big fields in Assiniboine Park where there are 4 baseball diamonds, one in each corner of the field. And, the Indian and Pakistani immigrants play Cricket in other fields there during the summer as well.

There musta been at least 500 Canada Geese in one of the fields I drove by. They're gathering together as they do every fall for the long flight south. My understanding is that they will be flying all the way down to Texas over the next few weeks.

If you ever see Canada Geese in a field, and it looks like they're not doing anything (except standing still), they're actually feeding. Canada Geese feel the ground with their feet, and can locate worms and bugs moving through the ground, and dig them up with their strong beaks. That's why when you see them in a field, they won't cluster together like cows generally do. Each bird will hunt for bugs in his/her own territory.

Joke: When Canada Geese fly south, they always for a "V" formation. But, one side of the V will typically be longer than the other. Why is that?

Answer: Cuz there's more geese on that side.

[clare]

I wish ALL the geese here would fly south and forget how to come back. Around here about hald "over-winter" in our urban parks. We call them "flying dogs" - for several obvious reasons.

[IGot2P]

I agree with you the damn things are staying the winter in SE Iowa now and some of the picked corn fields are full of them. They also appear to be about half tame and will come right up to your deck in your back yard.

[rbowman]

The high profile osprey got some help in their war with the geese but the pair down the road from me weren't as lucky. The first year that I saw the goose in their nest I wondered what would happen when the osprey showed up. They perched on an adjacent pole and glared a lot but I never saw them attack the goose.

Geese aren't into home repairs, so sooner or later the nest falls apart, the goose goes elsewhere, and the osprey can rebuild.

[nestork]

Cuz they crap all over everything as they fly over.

[clare]

Not flying over - they just crap everywhere they go - grass in, crap out - and it is greasy , stinky, crap. Yes, and they guard their territory like a junkyard mutt.

[micky]

In the Balt-Washington area also, a lot of people consider them a nuisance.

[Blue Goose]

[dadiOH]

Throughout their entire area, a lot of the geese consider people a nuisance.

[Stormin Mormon]

Who got here first? Migratory birds or Europeans?

. Christopher A. Young Learn about Jesus

.

[Frank]

A lot of them don't come back. "Resident" flocks in the US have increased considerably. They were pests at one site I used to work at. Workers would have to come out in the morning to sweep the goose crap off the sidewalks and they used a remote plane to fly over geese on our pond and chase them off. Regular migrating Canada's have been largely supplanted by snow geese which tear up the marshes here in Delaware and hunters report that those feeding there and shot taste like crap.

[Ed Pawlowski]

I did not even know there was a race.

[nestork]

Canada Geese are also a danger to aviation. They hunt and feed on insects in the ground by feeling the ground with their feet, and airports generally have large grassed areas between the runways. Those large open grass areas are attractive to geese as feeding grounds. The problem is that when planes take off and land, the vibrations in the ground scare the birds into flight, and they can get sucked into jet engines, damaging the engine and potentially causing the plane to crash. That's exactly what happened in New York when that plane had to ditch in the Hudson River.

I expect that all of the runways at commercial airports are paved with concrete rather than asphalt. If airports simply paved the large grassed areas between the concrete runways with asphalt, that would eliminate the goose problem. Not only wouldn't there be any bugs under that asphalt, but the geese wouldn't be able to hunt for bugs through that asphalt either. It wouldn't be attractive to them as a feeding ground.

Canada Geese are also a nuisance on golf courses because they crap all over the golf greens.

[nestork]

Considering how large these geese grow (every bit of 15 pounds), and how many of them there are, I'm wondering if some hunters wouldn't use them for their Thanksgiving Day meal. I don't hunt, so I don't know if they're considered a "game" bird or not. I just know that they seem to be very plentiful.

Also, I expect a good size canine retriever would have no trouble dragging a 15 pound dead weight back out of the water and over land.

[Frank]

Canada goose tastes great. Roast with an onion and an apple in the cavity and maybe a couple of slices of bacon across the breast.

[Stormin Mormon]

Duck Al Infidel?

- . Christopher A. Young Learn about Jesus

.

[No name]

Long ago goose was the bird of choice on holidays; turkey was what you ate if you couldn't afford a goose. Things change, and now the turkey has been bred to be popular, and you don't even find geese at the poultry place.

I don't know if Canadian geese would be good eating. They're probably hard to clean.

[nestork]

You have to wonder which is worse; the Mexicans coming across the US's southern border or the geese coming across the US's northern border.

Both will take a crap almost anywhere and neither will clean up after themselves.

Neither speaks English well enough to qualify for citizenship.

The geese, at least, don't go to publically funded hospitals or send their kids to schools paid for by US taxpayers, so they're not a burden on society.

Mexicans, on the other hand, don't often get sucked into jet engines at airports during take offs and landings.

[EXT]

I have never heard of Canada Geese to dig up and eat bugs. All that I have seen them do is to mow the grass or scavenge spilled grain in a harvested field. Every spring I have them on my lawn, and the only things that dig in the lawn are skunks and raccoons.

[clare]

They are primarily herbivors, but will occaisionally eat the odd bug that gets mixed in with the grass and grain. They are not known to pursue a meat diet.