Tuesday, April 28, 2020

The Annual Maternity Parking Lot


If you've been following my blog for a while, you will probably remember that every spring a couple of Canadian Geese turn up in the parking lot where I live and hang around until the eggs are hatched.  This year was no exception.  I took the photo to the left on March 26th when this fellow first showed up for his ritual of sitting in the parking lot.  The top photo I took just last Friday when the same goose was watching things from the top of the carport covers.















Yesterday when I was sitting at my desk I heard a lot of very loud goose "honking" going on so I went outside to see what was happening.  It turns out they were rather loudly staking their territory around two newly hatched goslings.  They might be hard to spot in the photo above.  One is at the feet of the goose on the left and the other is up on that shelf just below his head.


It wasn't long before one of them was trying out his new and very unstable legs.  In the past years, I've always questioned why these fellows choose to nest in a parking lot where cars are coming and going all the time.  So this year I questioned Professor Google about just that.  Apparently it's quite common.  Just take a look at all the photos I found on Google!
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11 comments:

  1. biebkriebelsApril 28, 2020 at 3:17 AM

    Yes, a strange place to start a family there. Hope they will watch out for the cars... Keep our fingers crossed.

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  2. AndyApril 28, 2020 at 3:23 AM

    Isn't nature just grand? The geese have found a safe haven and will return next year for sure.

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  3. Steve ReedApril 28, 2020 at 6:24 AM

    I remember these geese from years past! I suppose parking lots are warm, and being wide-open, they're a place where it would be easy to spot predators? (Geese probably don't recognize cars as risks.) Just a guess!

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  4. RedPatApril 28, 2020 at 6:35 AM

    They are such cute babies. I saw a goose family yesterday with 6 babies and a large Red-tailed Hawk was sitting in a nearby tree for a long time watching them before finally giving up and flying away.

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  5. BillApril 28, 2020 at 8:17 AM

    I remember them. They must feel safe in that environment or I would think they wouldn't return. It's strange but so are people. :)

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  6. CatalystApril 28, 2020 at 10:48 AM

    Odd. This seems to be a day for blog oddities.

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  7. RevrunnerApril 28, 2020 at 11:34 AM

    Helps to be adaptable these days. :-)

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  8. KayApril 28, 2020 at 6:19 PM

    I've never seen a little gosling like this before. Sweet! Great shots!
    We have a nest of killdeer eggs that are due to hatch any time now -- they may have already hatched. (They're hidden in an area of lawn my husband won't mow while they're there.) If we don't catch them right away (there's a lot of noisy killdeer calling, too) we miss them. The chicks hatch and are immediately taken by the parents to hunt for food. The parents don't feed the chicks so they need to learn, fast.

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  9. Bob CroweApril 28, 2020 at 6:32 PM

    That's simply remarkable. We get large flocks of geese in season, particularly in the suburbs. They can be quite aggressive and a bit of a pest.

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  10. AimzApril 28, 2020 at 7:43 PM

    awww how sweet, I hope people are careful of them.

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  11. Susie of ArabiaApril 30, 2020 at 4:38 AM

    Who knew? What an odd place to choose for having a family!

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