Click photo to see complete painting

Canada Goose

Status Common transient, locally fairly common in winter, rare in summer. Breeds. Southbound migrants appear in September (average 16 September, earliest 2 September). Segments of these migrant flocks remain as winter residents in sheltered bays and harbours where, under normal conditions, food is available throughout the winter; such locations are found in Queens, Shelburne, Halifax and Cape Breton counties. When winters are not too severe, Canada Geese will be found in smaller numbers in other parts of the province. At Port Joli, Queens County, on 13 January 1927 approximately 2500 were feeding on the eelgrass beds that are usually exposed or within reach of the birds at low tide. Although some wintering flocks may move earlier within the province, there is a clear swelling of numbers in March and April. Most are gone by May, but in recent years nesting has occurred in Annapolis, Colchester and Halifax counties.

Description Length: 85-110 cm. Adults: Head and neck black, with contrasting white throat and cheeks; back and wings grayish brown; uppertail coverts white, forming a band across the black rump and tail; underparts white, washed and barred with ashy gray; bill, legs and feet black. Immatures: Similar.

Breeding Prior to 1965, reports were received of pairs of wild Canada Geese in Nova Scotia with downy young. One such report came from the marshlands near Amherst in June 1930. Because so many of these birds were kept on farms at that time, wing clipped or pinioned, the possibility that the pair in question were semi-domesticated birds that had escaped from captivity cannot be ruled out. During the late 1960s, numbers of pen-raised Canada Geese were released by various agencies, and these birds have established small nesting populations in the Musquodoboit and Stewiacke river valleys and, to a lesser extent, on the Annapolis River.

Range Breeds from Alaska and southern Baffin Island to northern California and across the United States to Tennessee and Maine. Winters from southeastern Alaska, the Great Lakes region and the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland, south to southern California, Mexico and Florida.

Remarks At the approach of spring, wintering flocks become restless and noisy as the compelling urge to return to northern nesting grounds awakens. On 21 March one year, from the shore of Port Joli Harbour, Queens County, I watched detached flocks rise from the water and mill about in the air, calling vociferously as though urging others to follow. The first to leave in spring are the old breeders, some long mated. We have all seen and sensed the mystery of these migrating flocks of wild geese high overhead, flying in long, wavering V formations, or heard their musical notes drifting down from the heavens after dark as "High through the drenched and hollow night their wings beat northward hard on winter's trail," to quote from The Flight of the Wild Geese by Sir Charles G.D. Roberts. Sometimes in spring they proceed too hastily and encounter ice conditions that cause them much physical hardship from lack of available food. Others loiter behind on lush feeding grounds as they wander slowly northward these are undoubtedly birds that have not attained breeding status.

During winter 1931-32, a mysterious blight struck the eelgrass (Zostera marina) beds along the Atlantic coast, causing a serious food shortage for the geese on their ancestral wintering grounds and many died of starvation. This disease prevailed over the entire range of this marine plant along the Atlantic coast, the cause of it never determined. It persisted for several years before the plant recovered, greatly diminishing the size of wintering flocks.

Very cold weather sometimes temporarily seals feeding grounds, preventing the geese from reaching their food. On 8 March 1932, I heard that a flock of some 150 geese was in trouble at Cole Harbour, long a winter refuge for Canada Geese about 15 km east of Halifax. Through the sympathetic and generous co-operation of the owner of a private plane, 70 kg of corn in 5 kg paper bags was dropped onto a frozen marsh. Then, by skilful manipulation of the plane, the weakened birds were herded to the marsh. Before we left, we enjoyed watching the flock, through binoculars, feeding on the corn.

Spring migrants frequently resort to upland clover fields to feed on the roots which they relish greatly. In the early days of migratory bird law enforcement, many complaints were received from farmers who believed the geese were damaging their crops of clover. On one occasion, I co-operated with a farmer to stake off an area of field on which the geese were concentrating. Some months later at mowing time, visited this section of the field with the owner and was much relieved to find a luxuriant growth of clover, which proved to the farmer's satisfaction that the alleged damage of which he had complained a few months earlier was imagined and not real. The fact that we had plenty of rain that particular spring may have helped.

Our transients belong to the subspecies Branta canadensis canadensis, which breeds in eastern Quebec, Labrador and Newfoundland. Four occurrences in Nova Scotia of the very small Branta canadensis hutchinsii which nests in the eastern and central Canadian Arctic, are mentioned by McAtee (1945).