Geese Migrate From Around the US and Canada
There’s an annual convention taking place this month in Marshfield and participants have flown in from around the United States and Canada. Daily meetings begin at the crack of dawn and, during particularly rowdy sessions, can run well into the dead of night. While the convention is quite exclusive and for members only, it is possible for ordinary people to catch a glimpse… All you need to do is head over to Wildwood Park and follow the honking sounds!
The ponds at Wildwood are right now indeed a sight to behold. Although a handful of Canada geese are present in the zoo and adjacent ponds throughout the year, during the migrating season, which stretches from mid-September through the end of November, thousands of geese use the ponds during one of nature’s most magnificent seasonal traditions.
For as long as anyone can seem to remember and for a variety of different reasons – most likely including the abundance of edible grasses and the pond’s proximity to the corn fields and the zoo – the geese have made the ponds at Wildwood one of their annual meeting places as they head south for winter.
According to the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology, the migration of Canada geese has more to do with access to food than with temperature. Therefore, some geese may not migrate at all if they have access to a reliable food supply, regardless of how cold the temperature becomes. And with the proliferation of golf courses and manicured lawns in recent decades, many experts believe that the number of migrating geese is declining as the species has an ability to thrive alongside human development.
Despite this, millions of Canada geese continue to migrate, including some that have been
tracked flying more than 5,000 miles during an entire migratory cycle. Because scientists have documented that geese repeat the same migration patterns and pass their knowledge to their offspring (migration is learned rather than instinctive), many individual geese arriving at Wildwood Park have certainly been here before, and will likely return again next year.
The geese bring an opportunity to witness an incredible coordination of their collective strength, including as they fly in their distinct “V-formation” that, according to the Library of Congress, both reduces their expenditure of energy through rotating leadership while allowing them to more easily keep track of one another.
But the presence of the geese at Wildwood is not without some risk and, as always when dealing with wildlife, it is best to keep your distance. For example, despite the temptation to try and “help” these creatures, it is important not to feed them. Neither bread nor corn, the most common foods that people give them, are part of their natural diets and may in fact cause the geese digestive problems. There is an abundance of grass for them to eat, which is why they come to our ponds in the first place. Ben Steinbach, of the Marshfield Department of Recreation, not only advises against feeding the birds, but also notes that the city does not in any way attempt to manage the geese population, as is often done on golf courses and in suburban communities.
Furthermore, as anyone familiar with the heroics of Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger’s “Miracle on the Hudson” knows, geese pose a direct threat to aircraft of any size. Because the Wildwood ponds are located directly north of the Marshfield Municipal Airport, this could potentially be a problem for local aircraft. In fact, the Federal Department of Transportation advises that there be no ponds within a five-mile radius of any airport (the Wildwood ponds are less than 2,000 feet from the airport’s runways). According to Jeff Gaier, Manager of the Marshfield Airport, while there have not been any collisions between the geese and aircraft using Marshfield airport, there have been quite a few close calls.
So in the spirit of acting as welcoming hosts for our annual visitors, let’s keep our distance and let the geese rest and eat without being bothered. They’ve got a long journey ahead of them. In so doing, we will ensure that Marshfield will continue to host this prestigious convention for many more years to come!
