#geesefamily

[missedmilemarkers]

[yourfavouriteplushie]

Every day can be improve by adding geese.

Just a some print ideas I came up, add a witch hat to anything and they become magical. Those are the rules now.

[canorouscepaea]

just some babby canada geese foraging :) i love to imagine they’re giant geese but from really far away, like seeing giraffes on a savannah

Branta canadensis

[helenarose2112]

I ❤️ watching these baby geese grow up! Yes, I occasionally call them little “duckies” 😂🦆🐤🐥‼️ #wildlife #geeseofinstagram #geese #geesefamily #duckies #nature #parksandrecreation (at Washington Park (Springfield, Illinois)) https://www.instagram.com/p/CPtkZvxg-PU/?utm_medium=tumblr

[nonnyhuang]

#happymothersday❤️ to all the mothers out there doing what needs to be done, every single day...including geese mommies too. Imagine having 6+ babies at once 👏🏻🤯#geesefamily https://www.instagram.com/p/COp55hnDpjXR5VEy1wSvS3SXi-yo55hjtp4PGA0/?igshid=1ro17n2n1mh6f

[jumpjojo01]

A pit stop #migrationbirds #geeseofinstagram #geesefamily #discoverfinland #finland4seasons #helsinkionline#myhelsinki #finland_photolovers #thisisfinland #ig_finland #loves_finland #helsinkiofficial #finland_today #visithelsinki #loves_united_finland #bestinhel#beautyofsuomi #thecolorsofhelsinki #finnishmoments #mydailyfinland #bestoffinland #bns_finland#finland_online #finland_today #helsinkibyday #finlandonline #thisisfinland #autumnvibes #myuusimaa #finnishview #ourfinland #natureoffinland (at Vanhakaupunki, Etelä-Suomen Lääni, Finland) https://www.instagram.com/p/CGWOk4jnPVI/?igshid=pc1ovvvta3uh

[mazzitak]

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A post shared by Mazzi Tak (@mazzitak)

😳15 geese appeared in front me🤩 Sooo cute! #geese #geesefamily #narragansett #rhodeisland #newport (at Narragansett Beach, Rhode Island) https://www.instagram.com/p/CDKF-8qBsKQ/?igshid=1xzkq73g9o0ja

[monatolivar]

Momma watching over her cute babies.

[wetooarestarstuff]

7/11/20

Today was a productive day. Well, productive for the geese first and foremost. But as a geese watcher, I would say today I witnessed quite a sight: a roundtrip of their flying lesson in the lake, from going down into the lake one by one in a line, to coming up the same way.

Every time I go to the park, one of my first tasks is to find the geese. Usually that’s not too hard, because they tend to be at a few set spots. But today I had almost made it around the whole park and still hadn’t found them, when I caught a brown back bending over eating beyond a grassy hill. I walked toward the hill, and more and more geese backs came into view. Standing on the tip of the hill was a single goose. It was far from all the other geese and seemingly looking over them and at the expansive scenery from this high point. I decided to join it. When it saw me come up, it moved slightly away and down toward the geese group. 

The other geese hadn’t noticed me, but I saw why this field was a perfect feeding location for them. It had the largest contiguous area of grass, and surrounding the central plain were trees and hills, a perfect screen from inquisitive humans. 

Then a wind blew, and being on top of a hill, I felt it especially fully, and my baggy clothes rippled like a scene from a Miyazaki movie. Suddenly, all the geese looked up and started flapping their wings and running on their stick legs toward my direction, which was also the direction of the lake, as if a switch had been turned on in the geese’s shared consciousness. Everyone did the same thing. They ran so fast I reckoned even humans couldn’t run faster. But I was standing next to the tree on the hill, and was in their way. Some of the goslings directly in front of me stopped just a yard before me, and they stopped so abruptly without a visible deceleration process, it was like they just noticed me that very second. They looked very confused why there was a human here, when there wasn’t just a moment ago. 

The large geese family with the five oldest goslings headed directly to the lake. They crossed the bordering rocks at the same spot as I had seen the geese go up and down the lake before. The other two families - Goose Dad family and the one-gosling family - lingered on the grass, and some of the geese resumed eating.

The large geese family was by now already in the water, blocked from my sight by hanging willow tree stems. But soon they reemerged, this time with a loud splashing sound, the same kind I had heard last time, as the whole family of geese dashed across the lake, leaving stripes in the water behind them. The two families on the ground were awakened by the sound. As if a follow-up switched had been flipped in their minds, prompting them to follow the first family, they ran toward the same gap between the large boulders.  

What happens now you already know. The parents led their goslings to practice flying on the water. But the goslings, with their wings almost fully developed, seemed much better trained this time compared to the first time I saw them do this, as they flew up a short distance from the water before landing back down in the water again. This might be one of the first few times the goslings were completely in the air, and I could only imagine what an exhilarating experience it must be for them. For any birds probably, even though they’re meant to fly, the first flight must feel especially special. 

What about the youngest, the only-child gosling, who still hadn’t grown enough feathers to even begin this practice? You might have thought that this family sat off to a side again. Well, its parents did, since they had nothing to demonstrate to their gosling. The pair was just drifting on the water, arranging their feathers tranquilly, away from the energetic geese. But their gosling was among the large group zipping and zooming across the lake, doing whatever it could. That was unsurprising to me. From these weeks of getting to know it, I knew it was adventurous, independent, and fearless. It had quite a unique personality among geese. From afar, where I was standing on the shore, I had to squint my eyes to differentiate this little gosling and the spare ducks who happened to be swimming in the area.

Besides this flying lesson, maybe geese also have diving lessons. After all, geese sometimes dive in the water to eat underwater plants and small insects. After a few minutes of flying and splashing, the geese quieted down and transitioned to diving on the spot. A family would be floating around in a circle, and all of a sudden all members disappeared into the water. 

I called the geese’s visit to the water productive because they managed to get multiple things done: flight training, practicing diving, as well as bathing and preening. The last activity before coming ashore was rinsing feathers. The geese waggled to get the lake water flow over their wings, as they slowly glided back to their usual passage way between the land and the lake. The large geese family, being the first to get in the water, was the first to come up. The five members of Goose Dad family followed closely behind. But the only-child gosling, who had been hanging out with its larger friends, hurried up with them, and as soon as its feet stepped onto solid ground, it ran ahead of everyone else to find a lawn to begin eating. Its parents were at a leisurely pace behind the whole group. 

Maybe because the feathers were all disarranged by the flying and the bathing, the geese spent the next few minutes preening on the grass. The only other time I had seen the geese do something so frantically was eating. The speed and urgency at which each goose nipped at its feathers was amazing. Perhaps part of it was to reapply oil over their feathers. Speaking of which, their feathers all looked perfect and glossy even after tossing in the water, without a single spilt, showing that the geese had been taking very good care of their feathers. 

Goose Dad family ended its preening session the earliest and started eating. The large geese family was still very much immersed in the self-care, understandably, since their goslings had the most feathers out of all the young in the flock and preening was probably more time-consuming. On the other hand, the only-child gosling, who had the fewest number of feathers and the most clumped wet fur, seemed to be following what the large geese family was doing, pecking continually at whatever spare feathers it had. 

I was standing next to the large geese family, and the geese’s intensely focused preening pulled me into a trance as well. As they preened, they puffed up their body, making each feather distinct from the rest. That to me was an especially pretty sight, so I reached out my arms to get a more close-up photo. It was likely the Dad I was pointing my camera at, for once it realized I had gotten closer to it, it hopped forward slightly, but its annoyance must have been triggered, and since it couldn’t direct its irritation back at me, a human who was much bigger than it, it ran and charged at a goose from the one-gosling family standing nearby minding its own business. The only-child gosling chirped in anxiety and immediately the other parent led it across the path to find Goose Dad family on the grass on the other side, and these two families commenced their lunch. 

As I walked home to cook my own lunch, I noticed a lot of crows - must have been around a hundred - on a wide, flat lawn in another area of the park. The verdant beauty of the lawn suddenly caught my eyes. I passed this place often but I hadn’t noticed it before. Had it always been so beautiful? The grass was a fresh, young green. The crows were probably feeding on newly scattered grass seeds. Then I remembered this section of the park was fenced off for maintenance the whole of last year. Is this the result of that maintenance? Well, I would say the effort sure paid off.

[matildasblog]

Out for a #familystroll #geeseofinstagram #morningfog #geesefamily if oscarpuppy was with me he’d be going #quackers right now. (at Greenport, New York) https://www.instagram.com/p/CAz3xMoHVSJ/?igshid=1tt426exu1b41

[yerlifeguard]

Nice day. The girls and I got a new water lily for the pond. The fish are excited. This evening the 4 of us drove out to Roswell to walk on the boardwalk off Willeo Rd where we saw these big bass and 3 little goslings. #getoutside #waterlily #bassfish #geesefamily (at Roswell Riverwalk Boardwalk) https://www.instagram.com/p/CAjKsu5JIFe/?igshid=1440xgvp0y8b7

[macci-art]

Betty, the goose, is going to be a mother soon. How many? I'll let you know😊.

[avongina]

Saw these cross the road today! Adorable! #goose #geese #geesefamily #nature #workfromanywhere (at Noblesville, Indiana)

[clickonthistv-blog]

The Geese of Chelsea #chelseapiers #Chelsea #chelseanyc #geese #goose #geeseofinstagram #geesefamily #geeseoftheday (at Chelsea, Manhattan)

[starlenebreiter]

These guys crossed my path while running today. Two Canadian Geese and their 3 babies. #geese #cuties #babyanimals #geesecrossing #geesefamily

[marybookworm75]

#geese #geesefamily #lakesacajawea #lake #washington