PRINT ADS

The vast majority of us who live in the United States and Canada must know the wild geese that we all call Canadas. The “honkers” certainly fly past almost everyone in these two countries at least twice a year, once in spring and again during the fall, while the great migrations are going on.

In our corner of this land, which lies along the La Crosse River Trail, we have every reason to feel that we now know these birds better than we ever did. For the past 30 years or so we have been hosting wild geese for about seven months out of every year.

A few places, such as Rochester, Minn., have had them for even more years than that. With goose numbers steadily growing, it looks as though other places will see a similar trend.

There are still a few things that many folks don’t know about our big wild birds, though. One fact being that Canada geese come in at least five styles, usually called races. And the races are decided by size, color and place of birth.

According to one bird book that I have, honkers range in size from 25 inches to 45 inches long, measured from tip of beak to tip of tail. That’s a lot of difference in length.

Birds that summer in Alaska and western Canada are reputed to be much darker in color than eastern birds. If the colors shown in the book are accurate representations, there is no mistaking where any one of them was born. I must say that all the Canadas I have ever seen were of the light colored (eastern) strains, regardless of size.

To tell you the truth, I first read something in a 1930s National Geographic on the various races of Canada geese while I was still in grade school, but I really never gave it much thought until recently. Today’s bird books show the differences, too. It turns out that there are two forms of them in the east and three in the west, and each one can be told from all others by its respective size and color.

Each region has a representative from the largest type with the western one being especially dark. The next darkest is the smallest of all, and the other westerner is mid-sized and darker than either of the two that we might see here.

Our easterners are all colored alike, both with especially light colored undersides. They vary considerably in size, though. Indeed, it’s interesting to see a mixed flock of these two forms with some being scarcely two thirds the size of the rest, yet looking alike otherwise. I have seen such groups during the spring migrations of recent years.

There is one thing more that I find rather interesting about this mixed bag of sizes and colors. The smaller races fly farther than the larger birds and make their summer homes farther north than the larger races do. No reason is given, and such behavior makes no sense to me.

But, then, what authority do we have to question any of the varying characteristics or behavior patterns among these various groups? Everything appears to be working for them, at least from my perspective along the trail.