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Bird contest

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I
don’t think this will count towards Brian s contest, this is me a few years back feeding cracked corn near the place i worked, the Geese got to know when I had the bag of corn and would rush over to me. It was a bad winter and we had snow cover for long time. Vijay

5 comments for “Bird contest”

  1. I love Canadian Geese. We saw them in the fields around our house this morning and along the parkway in Reno today. I really enjoy watching their parenting behavior. They nest around here so we get to see the total loyalty the parents exhibit toward one another and the care they take in rearing the kids.
    Colleen

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  2. I might be able to change your views, Colleen.
    We live on a 9 acre “lake” which is owned by Canada geese most of the year. When the windows are open at night we are serenaded by over 100 and we often have 25 or so feeding in the back yard. Then one must tiptoe to the edge of the water, avoiding the little green fertilizer plugs. A fishline strung about chest high will keep them out. They are too stupid to fly over it.
    There are services here which specialize in chasing them off, mostly for apartment complexes and golf courses and usually using border collies. (Now there is a magnificent animal.) In the spring these services find nests and shake the eggs, else we would be completely overrun. There seems to be no permanent way to shoo them off. There are chemicals which are expensive. Strangely, inflated alligator/ crocodile toys are said work for a while. They won’t walk close to the shore area where there is cover of cattails.
    But a pair of them is indeed a regal sight.
    George Dorner

  3. I have a rather sad tale illustrating your point, George.  25-30 years ago at the large technical park where I worked we received a dozen non-migrating Canada geese from the DNR, all wearing numeredb neck collars.  We fed them and watched them and were thrilled when they managed to raise goslings, despite the healthy fox population.  20 years later we were dealing with a very large flock, even with egg-addling, and the groundskeepers were sick of sweeping the sidewalks.
    So first they bought a pair of swans to drive off the geese.  Drove them off the ponds, ok, but they then nested all over the lawns, some close enough to the sidewalks that people couldn’t walk without being charged.  I was hoping for a large swan population 20 years down the road to go with the geese, but the cygnets all disappeared (we now have coyotes instead of foxes) and the male swan died.  He was replaced and the exact same thing happened the next year, leaving a single female floating on the pond for several years – a very lonely sight.
    Then they got the DNR to capture the flock and truck them far, far away, supposedly during molting season when they don’t like to fly.  Our flock was back within the week.  We were able to recognize some individuals, so we’re relatively sure it was the same flock.  Did it again the next year, with the same results.
    Then in a few years they got a permit to kill them all.  Captured them all one evening, killed them, hauled them off.  We were stunned the next morning when we heard – about half of us were looking forward to clean sidewalks but the goose watchers (including me) were furious.
    Within 2 weeks we had a new flock, almost exactly the same size as before.  Prime habitat (lovely green grass and large ponds) is not going to stay vacant for long.  Our company gave up, quit fighting the geese, and only cleaned the sidewalks once a month or so.  We just wished they’d learned the lesson before they killed off our particular favorites.  The company has since donated the land and lab buildings to the state, so I suppose the DNR can deal with it directly now.

    Kathleen

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  4. The golf club where Paul was a member had a problem with geese also.  They were told that the geese returned to the place where they hatched, so I’m not surprised your geese came back, Kathleen.  And they were not allowed to kill them.  I suppose the golfers are still tip-toeing around the droppings.  And you’re right . . .prime habitat is not going to stay vacant for long.
    Mary Lou

  5. LOL George I thought to tell her the same thing; anyone living near large populations of these pests will agree. When you can’t play your favorite golf course for the goose “poop” to be plain spoken it is a sad thing. At one of our local parks the children can’t play because of the same thing; some days there are way over 100 of the things around a small lake there. Phyllis
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