How much do we know about Canada goose? Something like - the male and female look identical (male is a bit bigger), they fly in V-formation. Their honking makes us happy (in spring) and sad and nostalgic in the fall. Most of us know, that they are devoted to each other all their life ( average 24 years long) and that there are too many of them in Toronto, because the city happened to be on their way.
I noticed them as often as anybody else - hearing their honk or running into them and then running away from them - they are really scary when they mean it.
But last fall walking around with my camera I heard their honk and looked at them into the viewfinder. It changed a lot. I saw beautiful and proud birds. They were making circles and circles around the same area. There was an order and consistency in their flight. There was rhythm. There was energy...
Yes, I tried to do it right - to catch, to pan and zoom while panning.... Over and over again, waiting for them appear exactly from the same spot, the whole flock together, flying the same direction. I was waiting for their honking, hoping that they didn't flue away -for how long it was going to continue? I became a part of that rhythm and that energy, and didn't want it to stop... But it did stop. And for a moment I felt deaf (later I couldn't believe this feeling, as I was standing on a highway). I was disappointed, and upset, as if something exciting was taken away from me.... Half a year away from that moment I still feel goose bums ( of course, what else?) while remembering the noise and the view of synchronously moving wings, so close, that I had to get off their way to be able to take the picture....
The picture just couldn't be good - I had no experience at all in photographing birds (or anything else, running, driving, jumping or flying). But all this experience made me do some research about Canada goose and just watch them.
Shortly, there are some more facts about them.
They mate "for good or for bad", staying by the side of their partner no matter what, protecting and defending, or just being supportive.
They never change the routs of their migration. The next year the young ones come back exactly to the place of their birth. They can travel 2400 km for 24 hours.
The female lays 5 - 7 (up to 12) eggs - an egg a day. During incubation period the adults loose their flying feathers and are not able to fly.
They use their body language and honking to communicate (10 different sounds have been identified). They are very sociable - stay in flocks all year around (except when nesting).
The main enemy of these beautiful birds are people. And excuse is lame - " just 50 birds can produce 2,5 tons of excrement a year and pollute ponds and pools". Has anybody calculated how much excrement can 50 men/women produce during a year? We already know how much they can pollute (look at the pictures on my page Day of Earth or Toronto ugly). I don't want even to mention what that pollution costs us. I hope, not our lives.
