Birds do it, other birds do it…
In the spring a GigaMegaGeek’s fancy stubbornly stays focused on gadgets and coding, but some of my neighbours have other ideas.
For the second year in a row, the company where I work has played host to a Canada Goose nest right next to our parking lot. The eggs hatched yesterday, and Mother and Father Goose have been showing the neighbourhood to their 6 kids. I suppose everybody thinks their geese are special, but mine really are! As proof, here are some fascinating facts about my geese:
1) The location of the nest itself is somewhat of a surprise — 2 feet from a very busy parking lot, as you can see from the photo — but I’m quite surprised that the exact same location has been used for the next both times. I have no idea whether this year’s parents are the same as last year’s, but there was definitely no sign of any geese in this area while the ground was covered in snow, from about December to March. That spot seems to be a dubious location for a nest, yet clearly my geese know otherwise. And you can’t argue with their success rate –two for two.
2) While geese are said to be monogamous, they sure aren’t liberated — Mom did all of the nest sitting as far as I could tell, and was faithfully sitting on that nest on all but one time that I passed by over the last month. On the one instance when she had wandered a few feet away to graze the lawn, about 10 days ago, I peeked in the nest and was dismayed to see nothing but a layer of goose feathers. I was afraid that we had a seriously deluded goose on our hands, but it turns out that she just did a clever job of covering the eggs before stretching her legs.
3) Our company is not only hosting a nest, but last year we hosted a Goose Day Care. A couple of days after the eggs hatched last year, we were astounded to see a herd of 24 goslings being guided through the parking lot by 4 adults. I have no idea how many goose families were involved — our pair only had 6 young last year, same as this year — but that herd stayed together in the area under about October. This year’s pair has 4 other interested adults hanging around the nest (older brothers and sisters of this year’s goslings, I suspect), and we may have a new herd forming. I just took a walk around the area and came across another group of 5 goslings about 100 yards from here.
4) The goslings get shoved out of the nest very quickly — they are up and walking within a few hours of being born — but the family returns to the nest at night. I just took the above photo, and you’ll have to take my word for it that tucked underneath Mom are 6 squirming goslings. (You can see a fragment of one of the eggs to the left of the nest).
Meanwhile, in the west end of Toronto, the 2 peregrine falcons that inhabit the highrise condo where I live are at it again. They laid 3 eggs last year, and seemed to have done the same again this year until a 4th egg suddenly became visible yesterday. As in 2008, fellow resident Matt Rossi is taking some amazing photos of the pair, and has just setup a web cam pointed at the nest. Since the first of the eggs is expected to hatch anytime now, I’d urge you to keep an eye on Matt’s web site to see how things go.
Peregrine falcons are gradually rebounding from the brink of extinction in Canada, but the odds are against the young making it past the “fledgling” stage (that is, learning to fly). Too many things can go wrong, both in the wild and in the city. Sadly, we found that out firsthand last year. All three of last year’s chicks successfully learned to fly and went off to explore the world, but all three died later in the year in collisions, 2 of them at Pearson airport.
There’s no way of knowing how things will turn out this year, but thanks to Matt and his incredible camera work we’ll all have the opportunity to find out over the coming months.
