ADAPTABLE CANADA GEESE

     Once a week, almost every week, we drive by a commercial development of roads and several large buildings, all surrounded by regularly mowed, short-grass lawns just outside Lancaster City, Pennsylvania.  And a quarter-acre pond graces the middle of one of the lawns, a good place for adaptable Canada geese to hang out, and they do, throughout the year.  Those majestic, wild geese are enjoyable and inspiring to experience on lawns as they graze on grass, and particularly when boisterously honking in flight over lawns, buildings and fields.  

     Canada geese are adaptable.  They take advantage of human-made habitats, including built ponds surrounded by lawns, where they ingest aquatic plants and lawn grass, and harvested grain fields, where they ingest grain off the ground.  

     Many groups of these elegant geese are at home on extensive lawns surrounding a constructed pond or lake in commercial, medical, school and retirement community campuses.  Some pairs of them even raise goslings in those human-made habitats, to the enjoyment of themselves and people who notice them.  We can watch the goslings and their stalwart, on-guard parents feeding on short grass, or plants in the water.  In a couple of months, from late April to late June, the goslings develop from cute, little bundles of light-gray fluff to almost full-sized geese.            

     But these handsome, adaptable geese also have problems in human-made habitats.  Some are hit by motor vehicles, and some goslings are caught by equally-adaptable red-tailed hawks, bald eagles, mink and other kinds of predators, in spite of the parents' vigilance and aggression toward predators.  But many goslings grow to maturity each year, increasing flock sizes.

     Too many Canada geese on a lawn can be a nuisance, even dangerous.  Parent geese protect goslings from people and dogs, sometimes causing injury.  And the geese deposit lots of large, wet droppings on walks and lawns, creating slippery situations.  

     But, overall, these stately honkers are an exciting, inspiring bit of the wild in our pond and lawn environments they adapted to so well.  Enjoy their intriguing presence.    

     I am thankful that many species of wildlife adapted to our activities in the habitats we created.  They have additional homes, and we can enjoy them right at home.  


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