Canada goose

Before the snow has fully let go of the fields, you hear them: a ragged, honking line of geese pushing north across the prairie. Canada geese are usually among the first spring arrivals in Manitoba, often showing up in late March or April while the ponds are still rimmed with ice. Pairs settle into wetlands and field edges to nest, and by May the first fuzzy yellow goslings are paddling after their parents.

Canada geese mate for life, and both parents guard the young. Goslings can walk and swim within a day or so of hatching. In midsummer the adults molt their flight feathers and spend a few weeks unable to fly, so families stay close to water. By autumn the skeins are back overhead, flying in V formations that let each bird draft off the one ahead. Most head south as freeze-up arrives, usually from October into November, though a few stay wherever open water lasts.

Flock of Canada geese in a misty field beside a round hay bale at sunrise

Photos

  • Flock of Canada geese in a misty field beside a round hay bale at sunrise
  • Pair of Canada geese swimming with goslings along a reedy shoreline
  • Canada geese taking off from a wet field with wings spread
  • Two Canada geese running across the water, wings spread, as they take off
  • Two Canada geese on shallow water, one honking
  • Canada geese on shallow water, one stretching its wings
  • Canada goose standing on melting snow
  • Canada goose and goslings in a green grain field
  • Goslings gathered among the cattails
  • Pair of Canada geese swimming with a brood of goslings
  • Fluffy goslings swimming in sunlit water
  • Canada goose walking past three goslings on short grass

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