The Canada goose family to pass through the pond on a regular basis in 2015 had two goslings. Perhaps because the summer was extremely dry (the pond level lowered significantly) raising the young was more of a challenge than usual. Both the mother and father sustained injuries during the season. While the origin of the mother's injury was unknown, the father's injury was due to his protective nature of his goslings.

Page 7 of 8
- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Geese tend to defend the turf on which their goslings stand and woe is anything that gets too close. I was surprised to see how calm the parents remained with these ducks so close to their goslings. The ducks were ducklings who had yet to fly so perhaps the adults realized they were no threat.
[In a patch of grass in front of a white panel fence are two yellow spots with heads (the goslings) beside an adult goose. Another adult goose is bent toward the ground about five feet to the left of them. On either side of the goslings about two feet in front of them are mallards with their heads bent to the ground as the search for food. A third mallard is off to their left about three feet.]

The goslings 10 days later are sleeping cherubs.
[The two goslings are sleeping on the dirt with their heads tucked down to their bodies as they sit side-by-side head to tail (head of one touches the tail of the other.]

The next day they got adventurous and went under the fence to my side. The parents stayed on the other side of the fence and the little ones seemed to panic when I moved their direction.
[The two goslings in the shade of a tree are standing beside each other with their legs apart, their mouths open, and their tongues visible as they try to his at me. The gosling on the left faces the camera while the one on the right has its left side to the camera.]

In mid-May mother goose came to the pond with an injured neck.
[The mother goose swims in the water just in front of a gosling. The mother's all-black neck has a white portion showing in the middle and it appears that part of the neck is bent toward her back like someone tried to snap her neck in half. Normally the neck is straight.]

A different view of her injured neck.
[The goose is on land with her back to the camera. While the left side of the neck is mostly smooth, the right side has a lump in it just above the white section (which should be black).]

Five days later she (in the rear of this photo) still seems to have a bit of a lump on her neck, but it eventually returned to its normal shape so I assume it healed.
[The four geese are on the sidewalk beside the bushes which are against the building. Poppa is in the front, the goslings are beside each other in the middle, and Momma stands at the rear. Momma's neck still has a bit of a lump shown.]

In early June Poppa goose attempted to intimidate a Florida softshell turtle to remove it from his family's path and the turtle bit him on his beak. After a few minutes the beak stopped bleeding and the goose washed the blood both from the beak and from his feathers. Florida softshells will eat baby waterfowl if there are not enough fish and other critters around for food (which was the case with the very low water levels) so it did pose a threat to the family.
[The goose sits upright in the water with red blood covering the lower two thirds of its bill and splattered blood over the front of its breast and reddish tinges on the feathers of its back where it tried to wipe the blood off its bill.]

I took this photo after he cleaned the blood from his beak and it looks like part of the surface of the beak on the right side of the nostril was ripped. The beak is made of keratin which is the same substance as fingernails.
[The right side of the goose's head faces the camera. On either side of the nostril, but moreso on the right side, there appears to be a ridge as if part of it was ripped upward a bit.]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In mid-November at a time when all of this year's goslings would be flying, several sets of geese came to the pond. A grouping of several geese appeared to split apart two geese who'd been traveling together. The split geese would honk in response to each other's calls, but one particular goose of the larger group didn't want them to be together. Several times he chased after the one goose with a pause in the action in between. The geese were running across the top of the water since neither planned to give up and leave the pond.

The near goose in the aggressor. He chased the other goose out of the water and up the hillside.
[There are several waves of water up to a foot tall where the goose being chased had flapped his feet down because he'd not pumped his wings enough to go airborn. The aggressor goose is in a splash of water with his wings spread two thirds as he is within a couple feet of the other goose.]

And then across the hillside and back into the water.
[The aggressor goose on the right is in the grass with its wings partially up for balance as it hisses at the other goose further up the hillside. The other goose has its wings straight up in the air and it appears its feet are off the ground as it stays out of the way of the angry goose.]

Continue to page 8 to see close views of goose body parts.

Return to top of page.

All photos © S. M. Garver