The Geese of Montezuma

[Scottwdw]

In the last decade, Canadian Geese have gone from a symbol of nature to a nusiance species as they have learned to take advantage of Man's surburban lifestyle. I've seen park areas covered in their droppings and geese being feed from people's hands who then attack when the people stop feeding them.

However, when seen in the environment from which they have evolved in, they are still a very beautiful and majestic bird. Especially, now, as their plummage is very colorful and healthy. I recently spent some time in the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge (Click Here for More Information) near Seneca Falls, NY. The refuge features a wildlife drive around the main pool which is teeming with migrating waterfowel, shorebirds and songbirds this time of year. Many Canadian Geese call the MNWR their home and are used to cars driving by their nests which can be as close as 5 feet from your window.

Nesting Canadian Geese

Can you spot the nest?

Overhead flocks of Canadian Geese move from the pool out to the refuge's planted fields to feed.

I am particulary proud of this one you see below. Taken with a Nikon 80-400VR lens (as are all of these photos), I tracked this pair from a high observation tower as they were coming into the Tschache Pool to join other geese. I had my camera in continous mode and captured them all the way in. The photo below was the best of the sequence. Cropped and processed using Aperture 2.1.

Flaps down for a water landing, this pair came swooping in fast!

Even though you may see Canadian Geese everywhere you look these days, remember, they are wild and to approach with care. Probably better to use a zoom lens and keep your distance.

 

[gary]

nice work scott

it isn't bosque, but then again you can get there a lot cheaper, and that's a nice handheld in flight, they are good panning practice
and it's nice to have some observation towers/decks

i feel the same way about them as i do the deer, nice to look at, great to photograph, but you can't be non hunting and be realisitic about the lives these animals lead, there are plain and simple too many not to have some kind of control programs in effect. there are more whitetail now than colonial days, suburbia and golf courses have made sure of that, mature forests have no browse low enough and old ponds lack the marine environment for geese to thrive, but suburban ornamental horticulture is a deers delight, and sod farms and putting greens put some serious easy living down for geese
not to mention the insurance risks passed on to consumers due to the payouts of car versus deer here where i live

end of country boy rant, we now return you to our regularly scheduled forum

 

[Dan]

Just a slight counter rant. Yeah, but then when I see the hunters intentionally seeking to prevent predator species from being reintroduced in order to keep the prey species' numbers artificially inflated that argument starts to lose some of it's weight.

end of ecology rant.

 

[gary]

actually i'm all in favor of reintroduction of any and all predators

it's right there in the 2nd amendment, the right to arm bears

 

[Tim]

my parents live on a golf course... the smell of canadian gesse droppings can get a bit ... gamey ... come the hot summer months. i agree with scott that they seem to unfairly be associated with pests rather than nature and that is kind of a shame if you think about it.

gary you are a sicko!

 

[Dan]

hayuck, hayuck. (that's supposed to be the signature laugh of Goofy, but I'm not sure I quite captured the nuance of it with that spelling)

Actually I completely missed the joke at first. I guess I'm in a literal frame of mind. I just couldn't figure out what the gag was.

I was thinking "why do bears need guns? they're dangerous enough on their own".

 

[Scottwdw]

Nice to see this spawned a spirited debate. I'll see what it does when I post the photo essay on my blog tomorrow.

Man had taken away natural predators and created perfect habitats for geese, deer, raccoons, skunks, crows and many other animals that have integrated into our sprawling suburbs. Can't blame them for taking advantage. Then, when they become too numerous, the same people who allow predators to be hunted with airplanes and traps, bitch about the geese and deer ruining their lawns and parks. Go figure? :

 

[Dan]

My beef was with the hunting of predators in places that are still wild, especially when the excuse is "because they're killing the animals that WE want to kill". I'm not sure it would be a good idea to have loads of wolves roaming the countryside of places that have a fairly dense human population. The other problem are the small, isolated populations. In such places, such as a little stretch of forest and prairie near my house, there really is no way to have healthy predation. Or there's a Girl Scout camp near here that is completely fenced in. It has a population of deer, but only the largest deer can jump over the fence. So it's basically a captive population, and it tends to grow out of control. We can't exactly have a population of wolves culling the herd in there, that's like the plot to a bad horror movie.

I can see it now, the "spend a night in a wolf infested forest" badge.

 

[gary]

no actually it makes for a much more realistic camping experience, as many say they "want to get back to nature" well ok you tree hugging granola crunchers, here's the authentic experience, complete with top of the food chain predators and man in the picture, with our weak slow legs and worthless hearing and eyesight, yeah that's really back to nature
if god didn't want man to be at the top of the food chain, he/she wouldn't have given us gunpowder, direct quote from grandpa faucon, a genuine politically incorrect sea captain, complete with master's paper's from steam days, i learned a lot about life from that cranky stubborn miserable old man, but you always knew where you stood with him