Canada Geese

This is an awful image! I met an extraordinary gentleman walking his King Charles Spaniel this morning. We started chatting and I was soon convinced that asking him if we could walk together would get the dogs some exercise! He was a delightful eccentric who, although I can't remember having met him in the past, knows many people that I do and was full of amusing and spicy local stories, most of which I wouldn't repeat. It made for a pleasant walk but, engrossed in chat, I missed any real photo opportunities and just snapped this one image before I returned to the car. I've done what I can to make it presentable.

Canada Geese, Branta canadensis, are said to have been introduced into the UK around 1660, to enhance the wildfowl collection in St James's Park, for King Charles II. They were good looking birds with striking plumage and attractive calls. Of course, if they are good for a king, everyone wants one, so they soon adorned the ponds of country estates and wealthy landowners. The fact that they were also a good table bird made them all the more desirable.

Soon the population soared. They started escaping, or were purposely released for over stocking, and by 1890 wild breeding pairs were being recorded. Today the RSPB lists the breeding pairs of Canada Geese in the UK as 82,550 and 190,000 will overwinter. Unfortunately, their success has become a problem in many places.

Although not strictly vegetarian, their main diet is vegetation, and lots of it. Where numbers are dense, especially in public areas, not only do they out compete other wildfowl species but they graze so severely that they denude the soil. They are the perfect shit machine. It takes only minutes for food to enter one end of a goose, to be then expelled from the other, as a thick slippery guano. Apart from the obvious health risks on land, when deposited in water it causes the deoxygenation of lakes and ponds which is the primary cause of algal blooms and toxic pollution.

By the 1950's, it was recognised that Canada Geese had become a severe pest. Since then, numbers have had to be controlled. Although they can be shot, they can't be sold, which is a shame because the meat is good. If you take their eggs the birds just lay more, so mostly, their eggs are found, dipped in an odourless paraffin which stops them developing, but convinces mother goose to continue to sit until she realises nothing is going to hatch. It sounds cruel but is effective and essential to keep a healthy balance of wildfowl on British waters.

Tomorrow to the Big Smoke. The woman and her map are declaring a wash out. I can think of better places to visit in torrential rain!