The Bird Files: These Geese are NOT Good Canadians!!

Well, here I go again, once more against the flow again. I'm now getting barely 20 views on videos that used to get in the hundreds, and I refuse to believe the quality has plummeted, because I am STILL getting healthy views on the older ones of much lower quality. I am also still gaining subscribers steadily and am soon going to be up to 20,800+. Other channels I follow have a tiny fraction of that number and get thousands or tens of thousands of views. 

I have been harassed and persecuted relentlessly by YouTube for "hate speech", as well as "bullying and threats" (to MEGHAN MARKLE - ??). I still get a lot of very innocent comments taken down and find myself commenting in code. So if this gets no views, or five or whatever, I guess I will leave it up anyway. 

But I feel like I'm twisting in the wind. And I am, and it could get a lot worse, but as it is, I don't even want to look at my channel any more because I know it will be bad news and bring down my day. I keep telling myself, keep going, keep going, the algorithm is going to forgive you eventually, but it's the double whammy of the royal bullying and threats (totally ludicrous!) added to the Gypsy Rose "hate speech" that is doing this to me - along with that stupid "warning" thing that is on my record forever, though there was supposed to be a way out of it that was never posted.  

It's hard these days, and my first job is to keep up my mood and morale as well as I can, but it's just awful to see this, after years and years of careful tending and building. I haven't had decent views in half a year at least. Anyway, these geese were pretty amusing, and I think it's a great video, and I don't think anyone is going to watch it.  I can no longer share my passions with more than a tiny handful of people, and even that miniscule audience is shrinking away. 

UPDATE: this video got 9 views in 24 hours. My previous birdwatching videos got 50 - 100. I am so sick of trying to be positive, etc. while everything I've built over 13 years sinks in the swamp!

WHAT IS GOING ON?????????????

🐥BABIES EVERYWHERE! Gosling Stampede at Burnaby Lake🐥

Goslings, goslings everywhere! They were peepin' and cheepin' on our last visit to Burnaby Lake. Several Canada goose families were massed together, and the fuzzybutts had taken over the place. It's common to see goslings at many different stages of development, and one even looked like it was right out of the egg. There's also a magical moment when two gorgeous male red-winged blackbirds swoop down to eat out of my hand.

Why is this OK? Because it's not.

 NOTE: This appeared on my Facebook page today. I really think I shouldn't use social media at all, as it seems to take me to a place I don't want to go. No one reads it anyway, do they? But today some shit went down that I really needed to write about, for myself if for no one else. 

I don’t usually post rants on social media, but something happened today that I have to report on. We love to walk around Como Lake in Coquitlam, an urban park full of wildlife and old guys fishing and young kids prancing around and people just generally strolling along in the peace and quiet. But when we arrived for our usual peaceful stroll, I heard this godawful noise – a loud, harsh, sustained buzz, even more irritating than those awful drone sounds – and then I saw this streak of “something” speeding over the water, so fast I could barely take it in.

I had never seen a model/remote control boat move that fast, rocketing from one side of the lake to the other and making a sound so loud you could not tune it out. Four guys were sitting on the shore on lawn chairs taking turns operating this thing, chuckling and guffawing away like 8-year-olds doing something naughty – but it got worse. The guy taking his turn at the controls ran the model boat right up behind a Canada goose which was sitting peacefully in the water, perhaps even asleep. It startled and took off a nanosecond before the evil thing hit it.

 I strode up to the giggling group of grown men and said, “I’m going to report you for this. You’re harassing the wildlife in a public park, and that is NOT allowed.” The guy looked a tiny bit sheepish and said, “OK, I won’t do it again.” (I think he had been doing it for some time.) But I had more to say. “The geese are nesting right now. They’re vulnerable. This is a safe place for them, a sanctuary. This (and I began to cry) HURTS me to see.” The sheepish guy sort of mumbled a half-assed apology, then went right back to assaulting the lake and all the rest of us with  the noise and the hurtling speed.

Every once in a while the thing wiped out, spun around in the water and then reversed direction. It was going at such high speed it was literally flying above the surface of the water, so what would happen if it really flew out of control and hit someone? The geese weren’t the only ones in danger – there was a group of old men trying to fish and have a nice social gathering, and the atmosphere was completely ruined. 

Bill was so upset he stalked off, but I ran into another trailwalker who told me they had  actually covered up the prominent sign saying, “WARNING: No motorized craft or remote control models allowed” with a COAT. No kidding, so they think if the sign is covered up it’s okay? The trailwalker and I commiserated for a while, then I noticed the racket had suddenly stopped, and a few minutes later the four idiots had vacated, but left the coat (a child’s coat, which they had probably found lying on the trail) hanging over the sign. I took it down and tacked it up on a neutral area, thinking maybe someone would come back for it.

But I was astonished at the – what? Why is it OK for a model craft hurtling along at incredible speed to take a run at a living creature? Isn’t this lovely urban park something of a sanctuary for the birds? This particular lake attracts whole colonies of Canada geese, and soon we’ll be seeing plump fuzzy goslings floating around in the lake. I have no doubt these guys would love to take out a gosling or two, or maybe even the whole brood. If I ever see those bozos again I will report them, or maybe I should report them right now.

 I don’t want to be a complainer, and there’s too much ranting going on in the world right now, but this was atrocious behaviour in so-called grown men. I suppose the rest of the time they’re out in the woods bringing down elk and deer with rifles, drinking beer and guffawing at the sight of a magnificent animal sinking to its knees, shot dead.

😳Angry Canada Goose has a HISSY FIT!

This Canada goose was having a hissy fit. I've warned parents of small children not to run up to them, as they can begin to hiss, lower their head and "charge". The little teeth lining their beaks can give you a nasty bite. I've heard of people being killed by swans, and I can see it happening with these creatures. Like rats, like crows, like raccoons, they thrive everywhere and make a nuisance of themselves, ruining farmers' crops and making great piles of doglike do-do.

Holy Honkers! TWO HUNDRED CANADA GEESE in Blakeburn Lagoon!

This was one of those rare sights that makes birdwatchers turn cartwheels of joy. It's what a fellow birdwatcher called "a gathering of the clan" - HUNDREDS of very vocal Canada Geese in one small body of water, a man-made lagoon we love to walk around. A week or so before, the lagoon was almost completely deserted, with only the odd dabbling duck. But as we approached the water, unable to see through the bushes, we heard this incredible racket and had no idea what it was. When I first saw the massive flock, they were so far away I could barely take in the sheer sweep of them, and I was only able to photograph a small portion of a colony that extended far into the other side of the lagoon. With the sun in my eyes, I barely knew what I was photographing, so I was pleasantly surprised to see my zoom had picked up closer shots of them, all sailing along in the same direction and making a bloody racket! The next time we went to the lagoon, about a week later, I did not see any geese at all, but the ducks had returned, no longer crowded out. In fact, I saw mallards, coots, a heron, wigeons, and mergansers all returning from wherever they had been all summer. Such is the endless joy and superb variety of birdwatching. It's literally never the same twice.

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😲WHAT?? Two Canada geese mirror each other EXACTLY!

I love it when nature does these things! We've noticed how "flock-y" Canada geese are - walking in stately single-file, swimming around in circles, and of course flying in their famous migrating V-shape. But it amazes me how they can stay in exact tandem like this, mirroring each other's every move. There is some sense they have, either a very finely tuned sensitivity to each other (not likely, for Canada geese are both aggressive and not too bright), or a kind of "hive mind" that operates all the geese at one time. Lately we have been seeing a vast colony of a hundred geese or more camping on the shores of Lafarge Lake. But even if they are sleeping along shore, their fat breasts bulging, they are all facing the same way. Hive mind says: SLEEP! Squawk! Honk! Eat! Run off the ducks!!

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💥WHEN BIRDS ATTACK! Swarmed by AGGRESSIVE Canada geese

As I attempted to feed a lovely white dove which has taken up residence at the dock on Burnaby Lake, GEESE muscled in from every side - big, fat, honking, pooping, hissing, running-at-you Canada geese. Not my favorite bird. The dove was undoubtedly a domestic bird which had escaped, and was even banded. We remembered seeing four of them originally - two white and two black. I do not see how anyone could abandon birds that beautiful, and their chances of surviving in the wild are close to nil. Once we even saw, incredibly, a small flock of white domestic ducks bobbing around amidst the mallards. Then we saw three. . .then two. . . then one. . . and now we don't see them at all. Domestic birds do not have sharp  enough survival instincts and are not bonded to the flock sufficiently to survive even in these semi-tame environs, where people constantly come to photograph them and feed them by hand.

🌞GOOSE ON THE LOOSE: Canada Geese TRAMPLE Goose Barrier!🌞

Geese don't read signs very well. Or maybe they read them TOO well, and just ignore what they say.

MASSIVE Canada Goose colony in Barnet Park!

My wild goose chase and other bird adventures are keeping me sane right now (as sane as is realistically possible, that is). This goose colony which sprawls all over Barnet Park and its gorgeous public beach began in the spring, when we came across half a dozen families with goslings of all different ages. Now they're all juveniles which are not quite ready to fly, and almost indistinguishable from the adults. The only down side of this incredible sight is the MOUNTAINS OF POOP everywhere - really nasty poop, like something from a small dog rather than any kind of bird. Canada geese are the bane of farmers everywhere because they rip up newly-sprouted crops the way they rip up grass in a field. They can be surly and hissy and even aggressive, but most are respectful if YOU respect THEM. Little kids were chasing the geese around, and while the birds were not hurt by it, it hurt their dignity and sense of safety, and I wish their parents had told them to cut it out. Wild geese aren't public property - they're living beings and belong to themselves and to nature. These are massed families, and in spite of looking almost grown-up, the adults are still jealously protecting their young. Better than a lot of human families, I'd say. 

Gosling disaster!

This was just so sad. A very small gosling had slipped through a grate across a stream, leading to a waterfall that made it impossible for it to get back to its parents. They were honking frantically as they tried to get to it.  A man climbed over the side of the bridge to rescue the gosling, with predictable results: it ran into the brush and disappeared. Now that I think about it, an adult might have been able to rescue it by either picking it up in its beak and flying away, or shuffling it onto its back. I've seen newly-hatched goslings ride their parents' backs before.

It doesn't seem likely this ended well, but as usual, it probably had more of a chance if we humans had stayed out of it.

Not interfering is so hard. I saw a lone duckling running around frantically a few weeks ago, peeping and peeping as if trying to find its mother and siblings. The other day I saw a tiny gosling in a group of half-grown ones, which were hissing at it and poking it savagely. I tried to get it out of there, only to have it run into the woods. My feeling was: if I can only get it into the water, it will have a better chance against predators. But the water was only a few feet away, and it seemed to prefer the shelter of a flock (even a hostile one). I've seen this a few times before, and I don't want to think too much about the inevitable conclusion. Mother Nature can be such a bitch.

Goose stampede!

Wild goose stampede! For reasons unknown, a large group of geese encompassing three or four families began to run away in terror. Or maybe they were running TO something? Whatever it was, it must have been good (or bad). I wish I had managed to capture more than half a minute of this, but as usual I was focused on something else.  I took this footage at Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake, my current favorite place to goose-watch.

Found, lost, and found

This spring was Paradise rediscovered: we stumbled on a place we found years ago, then lost. Then found again. It's a wildlife magnet called Piper Spit on Burnaby Lake, with a boardwalk, a huge expanse of warm shallow water, marshland for nesting, and birds.

I find birds restful and spiritually soothing. Their song seems to pour balm on the rawness in my soul. We used to have tons of them in the backyard: jays, juncos, chickadees, wrens, thrushes and nuthatches, even the odd flicker. We're not sure why they're not hanging around any more, unless it's the cat staring out the window at them. But Bentley didn't seem to scare them last year.

When we stumbled on this place again, I had a feeling I've experienced only a couple of times in my life: that I had found a sort of heaven on earth. The birds here are so tame that they walk up to you (no doubt because they've been human-fed, a practice I don't believe in, though it leads to some amazing close encounters.) Every time we go there, we see new species. I'm also posting video of our incredible encounter with two magnificent sandhill cranes. For some reason, red-winged blackbirds love the place, and I had my hand less than two inches away from one of them. Now I'm tempted to try to get one of them to eat out of my hand, which I know I shouldn't.

I need this. I always feel frazzled in my brain somewhere, and often feel I can't really express myself on this blog, so I result to satire and silliness. I hate the wildfires in Fort McMurray, I fear that we are next, and am sure we at least contributed to causing it with our brutality to nature. I feel completely powerless, and the homilies on Facebook and the "hey, get involved" exhortations ring hollow.

So I have this.

I have this, which was there all along, but we somehow never knew about it. Except that we did! We went there once, years and years ago. Then the area was closed by construction and we got distracted and never went back.

Do things happen at the right time? No, they don't. Humans impose that idea on reality, to reassure themselves that (a) we are in charge of everything, and/or (b) the Universe wraps itself around our own particular whims.

None of this is true.

But I have Piper Spit, and I have just begun to explore it. I get that strange heaven-feeling I've had maybe twice before in my life. It's an enchantment that lies very close to the source of life.

Stand on guard: Canada geese at Piper Spit

Bill managed to get a few shots of these newly-hatched goslings at Burnaby Lake yesterday. These are little fluffballs, still with their golden coat on.

If you get too close to the babies, there is a certain sequence of events. Unlike ducks, where only the female hangs around, geese guard their young in pairs. The sentry duck raises its head and stiffens its neck, then begins to nod its head up and down vigorously, then lowers its head and kinks its neck. The next step, you don't want to see - it charges at the enemy full-on. Swans have been known to kill people, so I don't think a riled Canada goose can be far behind.

Newly-hatched mallard chicks seem to go into the water immediately, but you usually see these little guys on the ground. That might explain their parents' zealous guarding behaviour. Either that, or they're just being Canada geese ("we stand on guard" - oh no - that's the second time I've said that).

We didn't get a shot of this, but there was a mother duck with thirteen newly-hatched ducklings swimming around in the warm, shallow waters of Piper Spit. This is a place we "discovered" maybe ten years ago, then it was blocked off for construction and we almost forgot about it. But every few years I'd ask Bill, "Remember that place - where was it? It had a great big boardwalk with a round thing at the end, and there were ducks just swarming all around it." "I dunno." Then I'd shove it back into the dreamscape that makes up 85% of my mind.

Then we got lost recently, and ended up at. .  . 

"This is Burnaby Lake," Bill said. "Remember? We came here once."

Oh Lord. Here it was, the big boardwalk with the round thing (a circular dock) at the end, the hordes of wildlife, songbirds, ducks, geese. . . shallow warm water and people feeding the birds, which is not a good idea, but which draws them magnetically.

We had found it, by God, or re-found it. I had not imagined it. Looking up information on it, we discovered were on the Piper Spit boardwalk. There was a colony of birdhouses nearby, and tons of red-winged blackbirds, which might be making families in there. These are nearly tame enough to eat out of your hand.

Best of all is the birdsong, the wildlife sounds which calm my brain. Urban life is noisy, and the noise is ugly. It jars. This heals, and restores. 

What does it mean when Paradise Lost is found again? 

Mystery duck

The duck mystery deepens. For years now, Bill and I have been walking around Como Lake in Coquitlam - a very pleasant alternative to the "duck park" that has been bulldozed to make way for a Third Reich-scale cement amphitheatre that will blast loud rock music night and day. Obviously, all the wildlife within a 5-mile radius has fled. 

But we still have Como Lake! We noticed some time ago that there are some pretty strange ducks amongst the mallards and wood ducks. This one, for example. This is a very big duck, almost the size of a goose, and he is brown-and-white  (several different shades of brown, from quite dark, almost coffee bean, to cocoa brown). Then we discovered, to our delight, a second brown-and-white duck, somewhat smaller than this one, likely a female. And yet, strangely enough, we've never seen them together.

I made this gif from an eight-second-long YouTube video labelled "Ducks at Como Lake". I know it's the same duck. Not my video, of course. There was no information with it, not even a description. This is not much help.

Do you think I can find ANYTHING on this duck, or on any duck remotely close to it? If I google "brown-and-white duck", I get professional photos that are labelled "brown-and-white duck". They appear to be of barnyard animals, but I can't be sure because there is no information with them at all.

NOBODY knows anything about these two ducks (or are there more? Or will there be babies?), which both intrigues me and drives me crazy. It's possible these are domestic ducks that have gone native, or whatever-it-is they do when they answer the call of the wild. Or maybe they're hybrids - it's just crazy enough. 

There were beavers living in LaFarge Lake (in the famous "duck park" which has now been paved, like Paradise in the Joni Mitchell song), and no one could explain that either. Nine beavers, to be exact, two adults and seven kits. Seems like some fever dream, except that there were nineteen trees felled or seriously gnawed in the park - we've seen some of them - and many still have wire mesh wrapped around the trunks. Beavers in a lake is no big deal, right? How about beavers living in a STONE QUARRY in the middle of a major city, in the residential area right next to a community college?

To make it even stranger, we saw an otter in the lake one day which scared the bejeezus out of the ducks. We've never seen them do this before, but they all, to a duck, beat it out of the water and just huddled in a line along the shore until the otter was well away from them. It swam around on its back like they all do. No way can there be ONE otter in a lake. Or a stone quarry.

Today we went to a place in Burnaby called Piper Spit and saw ducks and ducks and ducks: a mother duck with THIRTEEN babies, so newly-hatched their fluff was wet even when they were sitting on the ground. And we saw a pair of Canada geese with goslings so new they still had that pollen-y-looking yellow stuff on them, almost like vernix on a newborn.

One of the geese kept kinking its neck and bobbing its head at us. We knew why, of course. We were too close to its young. So I said to Bill: Do you know how you can tell it's a Canada goose?

Because it stands on guard? (Moan. It's too late at night.)

Special bonus news item from the Tri-City News!!

They may be one of Canada’s most iconic animals, but the beaver is not welcome in a popular park in Coquitlam.

City officials are once again dealing with the large rodents at Lafarge Lake after the animals appeared in late fall.

While the city isn’t sure how many beavers are in the park, Lanny Englund, the city’s urban forestry and parks services manager, noted a process is underway to have them removed and relocated.

The problem with the beavers is they damage trees and dig tunnels, which can undermine the trails around the lake and cause a hazard.

“It does seem to happen on and off and eventually it gets to the point where the impact is too great,” Englund told the Tri-Cities NOW, noting the city experienced a similar situation with beavers a couple of years ago.

“Town Centre Park is such a high use [park],” he said.

“There’s too much risk allowing them to do their thing.”

In the short term, the city has wrapped trees close to the lake in a fencing wire to protect them from the animals.

The city has also brought in a contractor to live-trap the beavers and relocate them to another part of the province.

It’s unclear how long it will take to trap and remove the animals from the lake.

Meanwhile, the big mystery is exactly how the beavers made the lake their home in the first place.

Englund noted the lake is connected to Hoy Creek and the Coquitlam River by underground pipes, but suggested it would difficult for the beavers to travel through them.

There is also a small creek in the northwest corner of Town Centre Park that has been home to beavers, but it would force the animals to cross over land.

Englund said an even more unlikely scenario is that someone intentionally put the beavers in the lake.
     

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Gangsta geese in the 'hood

Canada geese form ‘gang broods’ in Burnaby

Two adult birds with 33 goslings grab attention at Burnaby Lake

BY LARRY PYNN, VANCOUVER SUN MAY 22, 2015

A family of Canada Geese with 33 goslings at Burnaby Lake May 21 2015.

METRO VANCOUVER -- A new gang has claimed Burnaby Lake as its ‘hood.

Although a pair of Canada geese normally give birth to five or six young, Burnaby streamkeeper John Preissl documented two adults with no fewer than 33 goslings in tow. “As I walked down the trail near Piper Spit Pier, I noticed the large brood ... following the pair,” he explained Friday. “About 45 minutes later they swam right by me and across the lake to spend the night. It was good to see most of the rowers stopped for the family.”

The explanation is that Canada geese often form “gang broods” — defined as two or more broods amalgamated into a single cohesive unit and shepherded by four or more parents — according a 2009 study in the journal, Condor.

Gang brooding is more typical among older, experienced geese, and among geese that change mates from the previous year, the study found.

Gang broods, or crèches, can reportedly range to 100 goslings following just a few adults and are more common in areas of high nest density, in urban and suburban areas.

Rob Butler, a retired bird scientist with the Canadian Wildlife Service, said he spotted the same gang brood at Burnaby Lake. While he’s heard and read about such large numbers, this is the first time he’s actually seen it. “I said, ‘Holy smokes, look at that pair, they have a lot of young.’ ”

Butler said gang broods may be a case of safety in numbers — more eyes to watch for predators such as bald eagles, and reduced odds of being targeted should they attack.

“It’s mutual protection, lots of eyes and adults around,” he said.

It’s not clear why Preissl photographed just one pair of adults with the 33 goslings, but it’s possible the other parents are nearby, are dead, or are younger adults with less experience at raising young. “Anything’s possible,” Butler said. “At Burnaby Lake, they all get together to mooch food off people. They get all these broods together. It’s pretty easy to band together into one big group.”

lpynn@vancouversun.com

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

PLEASE NOTE: there's a really cool short video with this that I couldn't embed. Here's a link to the whole story.

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Canada+geese+form+gang+broods+Burnaby/11075978/story.html

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http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA

Geese What? Goslings Galore!

Three broods of goslings at Sasamat Lake. Taken last year. This was all I could find in video to illustrate the "Canada geese form 'gang broods'" story from today's Vancouver Sun. It's our own shaky home video. I believe we counted eighteen geese altogether, but the spectacular mega-brood in Burnaby Lake totalled 33 goslings swimming in one long line. We watch wildlife in Como, Lafarge and Burnaby lakes all the time, but we've never seen anything like this!

Geese What? Goslings Galore! (part 2)

Fun with the geese! This is part 2 of our short video of all those geese at Sasamat Lake. About 24 of them in total, though it's hard to count all those goslings running around. These came in various sizes according to when they hatched.

Geese What? Goslings Galore! (part 1)

While walking on the shores of beautiful Sasamat Lake, we had a delightful surprise - three families of Canada geese with a total of eighteen goslings, in three different age groups (small, medium and large, but all of them still fuzzy and flightless). The peeping was something to hear. I already love this place, and now we have an incentive to come back. These geese are smart to reproduce now, as Sasamat Lake is overrun with people in July and August. We don't usually go near it then. Most years we don't see goslings at all, but this is the second time this spring that we've seen a lot of them at once (ten at Como Lake).

Goosey Goosey Goslings!

Goosey goosey gosling

To their surprise and delight, Caitlin and Ryan discovered a family of geese outside their condo in Palm Springs.

Fuzzy widdle goslings. . . ahhhhhh. . . 

Palm Springs. Holiday. No, we're not there. . . 

But it might be nice (if we had the $$). . .

 This isn't a selfie, so what should we call it: a footie?