Hello lovely Hiveans !
Today I like to document our little family trip to to close by lake and the goose mooring. We went there during a beautiful day and had a really good time together watching all the gooses around. I hope you enjoy them too ^^
Beautiful Walk to the Goose Mooring
Our way to the boat mooring, where we were expecting to meet the gooses, we already spotted the ferryboat that circles around there every day. It was also heading to the mooring to end its actual tour. The weather was amazing that day, sunny and warm, and also it was only a distance of 500 meters, we enjoyed this walk so much that it took us about 30 minutes to get there. There were just so many little details that my son spotted on the way and we always to our time to examine them properly. We had no rush anyway and even watched some single goose and duck that swam along ^^
When we finally arrived at the mooring we were really happy that all the gooses were already waiting there. Its one of their favorite places and we saw at least a few of them every time we passed there so far on former lake visits. It looked as if they were taking a little sun bath after a round of swimming. These ducks are already totally used to humans and not shy at all. Thus, we went a bit closer to examine them more properly.
All the time, the gooses were standing there very still and we were getting as close to them as just one meter away. My son had a wonderful time watching them and laughed all the time. Somehow the gooses adapted to his sounds and started to chatter back. It was quite amusing to watch this and they even got louder steadily ;)
I actually did not notice it to that point, but as you can see it here, all gooses turned to our direction and approached us. Maybe the laughter of my son was interpreted by them in a way of an invitation to come to his side?
They were also moving very slowly and relaxed and as I did not notice the start of their migration, I just went on with taking a few pictures ^^
Canada Goose - "Branta Canadensis"
The gooses that I am showing you here are Canada gooses. The scientific name of the species is Branta Canadensis. These wild gooses are native to arctic and temperate regions of North America, but can also be found in Northern Europe nowadays. Here they usually stick to the area of Scandinavia [1]. Luckily a colony of these gooses is living at the local lake here since a several years so we can admire these beauties too.
Canada goose possess black colored heads and necks, white patches on the face, and a brownish-gray body. Their feet are also completely black. I really like this contrast of the black to the brighter rest of their bodies. Especially the white patches look quite adorable this way. Canada gooses are naturally migratory. Thus, it they are taking their journey during spring and winter each year. When they do, they can be spotted flying in very large V-shaped formations. They are also very loud and can be heard from very far away. I assume that in maybe a month from now these gooses here are also taking their journey and leave us for a warmer destination further south.
These gooses are mainly herbivores, but from time to time they also prey on small insects and fish. Their diet includes green vegetation and aquatic plants, as well as grains such as wheat, rice, and corn when available [1]. They are also known to be monogamous, as most birds, and stay together as couples for their whole live. If they mate in winter, they lay about 5 eggs. These little goslings usually enter the fledgling stage 8 weeks later and stay with their parents until they migrate back to her birthplace next spring [2].
Goose Wandering
As I told you before, the gooses started to approach us an wandered around. But ee were not their desired destination. They actually also did not went far, but onto the next best meadow for a big family diner on the green vegetation around.
They of course did it in a very loud fashion and my son was super exited to witness this from so close by. The whole procedure took quite a while and we tried to figure out if they were also praying on some worms too, or if they just stick to a vegetarian diet. We did not catch real evidence, but we were quite sure that one of the gooses were lucky enough to to catch one ^^
After a while we decided to go on for another nice walk around the lake. In the end it was just to the next best ice cream truck a couple of hundred meters away before we turned around to get back to the car, but we spotted many more nice gooses that way too.
Sitting and Gooses
One of our nicest finding was this scenery here. There were some gooses laying on the ground, resting and sleeping, while some other came along, freshly out of the water, and dried their feathers in the sun before they sat next to the others too.
We even found a nice pier where we sat down for a while. Here you can see my son and my wife watching a grey swans. As they were no Canada gooses it was quite interesting to watch these for a while ^^
I managed to take a nice picture of the swan too and like too. They were also not shy at all and we were able to get quite close to them. They even came very close to the pier. I assume that they were hoping for some bread, but we actually never feed them. There are many cases were feeding the local ducks results in dying waters. To prevent these, also it a very nice activity, we stay away from actively feeding the local animals.
Thank You !
Thank you very much for reading my little post about our visit to the goose mooring. We had a great day and a lot of fun watching the Canadian gooses all around the parts of the lake that we saw. We have not been on big vacations this year and will not be for the rest too. But we compensate them with many little adventures to forests, lakes, parks and other nice nature spots around the area here. A nice day out there in the amazing nature all around us is so relaxing, refreshing and enjoyable and many of these trips make out far more than a single big trip elsewhere anyway ^^
[1] and an article from the University of Michingan [2].All pictures were taken by myself, ©@adalger, with a Xiaomi Mobile Phone. For information gathering I used an articles on Wikipedia about the Canada goose
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Hello my friend @adalger!😃🐬 How good it is to see you here! Very interesting information about the Canada Goose, I had really heard very little about this species, the geese in this area are mostly totally white. By the way, very beautiful photos! the colors of the feathers are really pretty. Thanks for this good post!👏
Thank you ^^ .. I knew these Gooses for a long time now, but up to now I did not do too much research on it. We have the normal white swans here too 😉 .. I also managed to get a nice picture recently. They are beautiful, but with a little colour I kind of find them far more interesting.
That's a lot of goose poop to walk through to get to the boat. 🤣
oh yes, there is a lot of it 🤣 .. they really love this place and poop everywhere. We tried not to step into it too much, as my wife dislike it if our shoes are dirty with poop 😉, but focused more on observation in the end and didn't not care too much 😁