Canada Geese

For a few weeks each year our property is like a bird sanctuary for the migrating Canadian Geese. The flocks, typically spend the days inland on corn fields foraging, then at dusk take off by the thousands and head to the islands in the St. Lawrence River.
From our backdoor on Friday, looking skyward as some flocks fly over mid afternoon. It was a dreary, rainy day but the sky turned this beautiful soft, dove gray as the flocks began to arrive on the river.

Honking geese fills the air until 10 - 11 at night, then presumably they sleep because it is usually quiet until daylight when they start honking morning greetings before taking off again. Thousands stay in the area until the first big cold snap occurs then most of them head farther south. Some will stay all winter unless the river freezes completely -something it did up to 10 years ago, now rarely does. I was 10, when my family moved to this area of the province. At that time the river was frozen solid enough to skate on by December each year. If the river freezes over now, it rarely happens until the coldest part of winter here in late January, early February. It usually breaks up by mid to late March as the weather warms again.

Josh, my niece's 5 year son, stayed with us Friday night and yesterday. He was fascinated by the geese and watching the flocks. Of course, I told him all about the "lessons" we can learn from geese. He claimed there must be at least 142 geese in the big field......"Eileen........" he said with his face all screwed up in thought........."I think there is more.....maybe 143"........I agreed there must be at least that number, maybe a lot more even. "Ya....... tell me again how the geese stay and look after a sick goose?" He was most impressed at the fact that if a goose from a flock becomes sick or injured that 2 other geese will drop out and stay behind with it until it either dies or is well enough to go on. We've seen that happen almost every year on the river.