Trego's Mountain Ear

Mother Goose flew south a couple years ago, looking weak.  She didn’t make it back in the Spring – instead, Gander brought in a younger replacement.  The past five years, having lesser Canada geese for neighbors has changed my understanding of them.

First came the conventional belief – “they mate for life.”  That’s probably true – but I have a hunch that Gander was younger than Goose, and that he learned some of his responsibility from her.  The island, for nesting, was her choice.  That first year, she led the goslings through the grass, to an eagle that was dining on a road-killed cat.  After that blunder, Gander led the flock, and Goose brought up the rear . . . always, the goslings between the adults. 

Every Spring, Gander and Goose would show up before the ice went out, making sure that other geese couldn’t preempt their island nest.  Most of the previous year’s hatch – now adults – accompanied them.  When Goose didn’t return, Gander and Step-mother goose returned alone – I hadn’t realized the strength of the link with the young adults was hers.

This year, I’ve watched Step-mother goose work at blending 6 additional goslings into her flock – three blended smoothly, while the other 3 seem to have the ‘you’re not my mom’ attitude down pat.  It’s a bad attitude to have with the bald eagle preying on geese.  Since the adoptees are a little younger, Gander has delayed flight training.  For the first time, his family group isn’t the first to fly.  Step-mother goose is still training his three recalcitrant grand-goslings to follow him on land and water.

August is coming soon – the young geese will soon be airborne – this time (with luck and an absence of eagles) Gander will lead 15 young geese out on training flights, with Step-mother goose taking the rear position.  I see more and more family responsibility in this goose family.

On the other hand, we have two geese this year who are amazingly poor parents.  They nested late, so their two goslings still lack the adult coloration.  These parental units might as well be dating – they swim or walk away as a couple, leaving their goslings to follow along as best they can . .  it’s as if they got their parenting lessons from coots.

The worst predation has been on the orphaned mallards – the “injured mother” routine wasn’t a success for their parent, and the eagle just kept coming back for the ducklings.  I didn’t see the eagle take either of the orphan geese parents – but I’m guessing they made a strategic miscalculation . . . twice.

The nighthawks are flying over the pond in the evenings . . . and the young crows have moved from the discovery of grasshoppers on newly mowed hay to a bountiful crop of serviceberries, at the tops of the bushes.  The turkey hens, with their consolidated flocks, are doing well.  The marsh hawk enjoys a much better view of voles in our harvested fields – technically, she’s a northern harrier and hunts by sound as well as sight.  Cornell posts this picture:

And the bald eagle continues to come by and hunt.  Spectacular, but may have made the island nesting strategy obsolete.