50+ Lifestyles

Mother Goose

By Mary Schricker Gemberling

    “One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese cleaving the murk of March thaw is the SPRING! “
……………Aldo Leopold

Many of you may remember and perhaps still celebrate “May Day” on May 1st, but I bet most of you have not heard of “Mother Goose Day” on that same day? Gloria T. Delamar, publisher of the book, Mother Goose; From Nursery to Literature,  created “Mother Goose Day”  in 1987 as a way to appreciate nursery rhymes and stories. The actual term “Mother Goose” dates back to the 1650s. It does not appear to represent a particular person but rather a variety of stories like Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, and many others written both before and after the term was coined.

The subject of my article this month is also mother goose; not the proverbial one, but rather the mother goose that is nesting on the island in the middle of our lake. Shortly after we returned in March from our winter hiatus, the real “snow birds” arrived without notice to once again take up residence on our property. Much like a young couple searching for the perfect home in which to raise their family, the decision to settle on a particular site is a huge commitment.  The geese usually stay two to three months before they fly north for the rest of the summer.  Our resident Canada geese seem to be drawn to the open water, expansive lawn, and nearby grain fields where they can feed their young with an unobstructed view of any approaching predators.  Research suggests that they might even be the same birds that were here last year, as flocks tend to return year after year to the same location. However, spring migration is difficult to track because of movements between nighttime resting spots and nesting areas, but we do know they associate in large flocks and many of the birds may be related to one another.

Spring is the time of love for geese. For the ones that do find a partner, their romantic worries are over. Geese mate for life with very low “divorce rates,” and pairs remain together throughout the year. In a pattern biologists call, ‘Assortive Mating’, birds of both sexes tend to choose mates of a similar size. Most Canada Geese do not breed until their fourth year. Geese are practically indistinguishable in appearance. At a distance, they probably cannot tell the difference themselves. Maybe that’s why they are never far from their mate. If one of them wandered away they might never find each other again.  There is, however, a sort of pecking order among geese. Unattached ganders do sometimes fight fiercely over an available female. They hiss and bite and wield their powerful wings until one of them flees. They thus distinguish themselves as winners or losers.

Once a female goose is “in the family way” as my grandmother used to say, she selects a nest site. She prefers a slightly elevated site on the ground near water with a fairly unobstructed view in many directions. Once the real estate is procured she builds a nest of dry grasses, mosses and other plant material lined with down and some body feathers. She sits on (incubates) the eggs with the gander standing watch over her and the nest.  A female Canada goose will lay between 4-8 eggs at one time. The eggs are creamy white in color and average 3.3” long and 2.2” wide. Incubation lasts about 25 to 30 days with the mother goose remaining on the nest 23 out of 24 hours, taking short breaks to stretch and feed. The gander seems to know when his goslings are about to hatch because the day they hatch, he leaves his sentinel post and goes to stand beside his ‘wife’  like a proud father awaiting the arrival of his child. Hatchlings are covered with yellowish down and their eyes are open. Unlike many other birds, goslings are not fed by their parents. They leave the nest when 1-2 days old, depending on weather, and can walk, swim, feed, and even dive. They have enough energy remaining in their yolk sac to survive 2 days before feeding. Both the mother and father tend the baby geese, and they remain with their parents for their entire first year.

In the evening, when most of our flock disappears to their nightly resting spot, two lone ganders remain here on night watch. Although our mother goose on the island is the only one we have spotted, evidently there is another female lying low somewhere in the switchgrass surrounding the lake. If our calculations are correct in just a couple of weeks we should see our ‘mother goose’ proudly stroll across our yard with her tiny goslings; just in time to celebrate ‘Mother Goose Day’!!!

Mary, a former educator and Seniors Real Estate Specialist, is the author of three books, Hotel Blackhawk; A Century of Elegance, The West End Kid and Labor of Love; My Personal Journey through the World of Caregiving (available at www.amazon.com )