Post by Dave on Feb 9, 2007 17:52:26 GMT -8
Hello all,
I stopped off at Cheam Wetlands this evening (4:30-5:30) to watch the geese and swans come in for the night. If you have never seen this, I recommend it! The swans come in first (4:00-5:00) and then once it is getting quite a bit darker (5:00ish) the first geese arrive. At 5:00 today there were just over 200 Trumpeter Swans on the lake, and no geese. At 5:30 there were a couple hundred geese on the lake, and an additional 20 swans.
I went to the lake to find something unusual among the geese and swans, but I was unsuccessful. Watching the flocks come in is a great way to look at each bird and feel confident you did not miss anything.
The swans do a perfect spiral descent to the lake, landing perfectly near the middle of the lake. The geese are a different story. They come in straight and awkward. Their loss of altitude is very uneven, and sometimes look as if they will overshoot the lake and land in the trees. (I haven't seen that yet, they usually drop rapidly at the end).
The purpose of this posting, however, is to share some observations. When the geese descend, some geese glide in, loosing altitude relatively consistently. Other geese drop in sudden spurts, by twisting their wings vertical, and then quickly correcting them horizontally. Some geese actually do a complete, fast "roll" in the air, dropping 10+ feet at once. They are very acrobatic, and sometimes it looks like a flock of oversized Dunlin being split up by a falcon.
As I was watching this happen tonight, I was wondering if the "roll" type geese were Cackling Geese, and the "consistently dropping" type geese were 'common' Canada Geese. The flip, roll, twist guys seemed to be smaller to me, with shorter necks, but I am not the best at seperating the species. There are more gliders than rollers, but they could all use a lesson from their larger white buddies.
Has anyone else observed this difference?
Dave
P.S. Besides Geese and Swans, there was only a dozen Bufflehead, half a dozen Hooded Merganser, one Double-crested Cormorant (so much for not seeing one lately), a huge/tight flock of Ring-necked Duck, Scaup, and Coot, and a Beaver. No Wigeon or Mallards anywhere.
I stopped off at Cheam Wetlands this evening (4:30-5:30) to watch the geese and swans come in for the night. If you have never seen this, I recommend it! The swans come in first (4:00-5:00) and then once it is getting quite a bit darker (5:00ish) the first geese arrive. At 5:00 today there were just over 200 Trumpeter Swans on the lake, and no geese. At 5:30 there were a couple hundred geese on the lake, and an additional 20 swans.
I went to the lake to find something unusual among the geese and swans, but I was unsuccessful. Watching the flocks come in is a great way to look at each bird and feel confident you did not miss anything.
The swans do a perfect spiral descent to the lake, landing perfectly near the middle of the lake. The geese are a different story. They come in straight and awkward. Their loss of altitude is very uneven, and sometimes look as if they will overshoot the lake and land in the trees. (I haven't seen that yet, they usually drop rapidly at the end).
The purpose of this posting, however, is to share some observations. When the geese descend, some geese glide in, loosing altitude relatively consistently. Other geese drop in sudden spurts, by twisting their wings vertical, and then quickly correcting them horizontally. Some geese actually do a complete, fast "roll" in the air, dropping 10+ feet at once. They are very acrobatic, and sometimes it looks like a flock of oversized Dunlin being split up by a falcon.
As I was watching this happen tonight, I was wondering if the "roll" type geese were Cackling Geese, and the "consistently dropping" type geese were 'common' Canada Geese. The flip, roll, twist guys seemed to be smaller to me, with shorter necks, but I am not the best at seperating the species. There are more gliders than rollers, but they could all use a lesson from their larger white buddies.
Has anyone else observed this difference?
Dave
P.S. Besides Geese and Swans, there was only a dozen Bufflehead, half a dozen Hooded Merganser, one Double-crested Cormorant (so much for not seeing one lately), a huge/tight flock of Ring-necked Duck, Scaup, and Coot, and a Beaver. No Wigeon or Mallards anywhere.
