Canada geese have become a problem for many lakeside parks. I’m not sure if there is some more important environmental issue other than the green poop and slime that covers the grassy areas. The geese can be aggressive, but only if their nesting areas are disturbed.
The geese in our town became an issue of controversy a couple of years ago, during the harsh months of winter. Apparently not all geese migrate south in the fall, some stay to experience our winter for themselves. A reverse kind of ‘snow bird’ situation.
Bird lovers were feeding the geese at the edge of the lake, but the town, if I remember right, did not want the geese encouraged. This became an ongoing battle as the geese feeder was being fined, I do believe.
There was a secondary issue in that the bread being fed to the geese was actually harmful and should not be fed to them. I can’t remember exactly why. This did not deter our bird feeder who switched from bread to bird seed.
The end result were the signs posted by the town, large and obvious. This area is not really much of a beach. It is near the Marina clubhouse and the adjacent parking lot. There is a boat launch and a bit of a beach area that canoers and kayakers use. The marshy area a short distance down the shore is an ideal nesting area, so the geese love this section of the lake.
I like to sit in this area, see the birds gather. They seem to have a better understanding of the meaning of diversity. The geese live in harmony with the seagulls, the ducks and other birds. Something we humans could learn from our winged friends.
Carol
Once again I’m a victim of my own vision. When I came up with “birds of a feather” as our theme for the week I had a picture in my mind of one of the flocks of birds that congregated in our yard last summer.
Unfortunately, I stopped filling our feeder because I was fighting a losing battle with the squirrels, so despite the fact I tried to bribe them with a mound of bird seed on my patio, my feathered friends didn’t put in an appearance for me. There was a flock of grackles that showed up in the tree outside my bedroom window that squawked their fool heads off, but I wasn’t going out there at 5 a.m. just to take a picture.
So like Debby I turned to the more reliable waterfowl. Our town lies on the shore of Lake Ontario, so it’s no wonder we have an abundance of waterfowl. The yacht basin of the harbour is home to geese, cormorants, loons, swans, and of course a wide variety of ducks and gulls.
When my daughter was little, before the ban on feeding the birds, I used to take her to a small park in the west end to feed the ducks and geese. The ducks weren’t so bad, but the geese could get downright aggressive when it came to the stale bread we carried, and I recall a couple of times having to flee to the safety of the car to get away from them.
After seeing Debby’s picture, I’m glad I went with the friendlier ducks. :-)
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