The Canadian Geese are back.

[John Schmidt]

They're back along with all their collective poop. Last summer...all 3 days of it...a gaggle of a dozen or so walked past my apartment. By the time they got past you could have used your ice skates on the parking lot due to all the crap they dropped. They're still having a bit of trouble landing since most of the ponds around the Green Bay area are still frozen. Kinda amusing watching them land on the pond behind my daughter's place. It has a couple open water spots about 15' long, they come in with landing gear down and flaps/wings going like crazy. They hit the water and soon come to the end and hit the ice. Suddenly all you see are feet in the air, geese skidding uncontrolled on their backs and wings flapping like crazy. Ducks don't seem to have that much trouble, they're much smaller so take less runway. 

I sure hope those birds are a good sign cuz I'm sick to death of the cold and dreay gray days of winter up here.

[Moonshot_1]

They're back along with all their collective poop. Last summer...all 3 days of it...a gaggle of a dozen or so walked past my apartment. By the time they got past you could have used your ice skates on the parking lot due to all the crap they dropped. They're still having a bit of trouble landing since most of the ponds around the Green Bay area are still frozen. Kinda amusing watching them land on the pond behind my daughter's place. It has a couple open water spots about 15' long, they come in with landing gear down and flaps/wings going like crazy. They hit the water and soon come to the end and hit the ice. Suddenly all you see are feet in the air, geese skidding uncontrolled on their backs and wings flapping like crazy. Ducks don't seem to have that much trouble, they're much smaller so take less runway. 

I sure hope those birds are a good sign cuz I'm sick to death of the cold and dreay gray days of winter up here.

Wow, come in with no rational plan, crap all over the place and leave. Sounds familiar.

[hubcapsc]

Its like a flock of small dogs or something...

-Mike

[Jess from VA]

You want some real excitement, go out there with a 10lb bag of corn and dump it all around your feet.

They like the corn, and they aren't bad at attacking humans either.

This one elected to play through on the golf course.




And here we have your northern racist geese.  


 

[..]

Rats with feathers

[3fan4life]

They're back along with all their collective poop. Last summer...all 3 days of it...a gaggle of a dozen or so walked past my apartment. By the time they got past you could have used your ice skates on the parking lot due to all the crap they dropped. They're still having a bit of trouble landing since most of the ponds around the Green Bay area are still frozen. Kinda amusing watching them land on the pond behind my daughter's place. It has a couple open water spots about 15' long, they come in with landing gear down and flaps/wings going like crazy. They hit the water and soon come to the end and hit the ice. Suddenly all you see are feet in the air, geese skidding uncontrolled on their backs and wings flapping like crazy. Ducks don't seem to have that much trouble, they're much smaller so take less runway. 

I sure hope those birds are a good sign cuz I'm sick to death of the cold and dreay gray days of winter up here.

I saw my first Robin of the year this morning.

Hopefully, Spring is near!

[3fan4life]

You want some real excitement, go out there with a 10lb bag of corn and dump it all around your feet.

They like the corn, and they aren't bad at attacking humans either.

This one elected to play through on the golf course.




And here we have your northern racist geese.  


 

One of my Father's best friends was a black guy named Shep.

Shep made moonshine and used geese for guard dogs.

They were viscous.

I remember Dad pulling up in Shep's driveway and him coming out and telling us not to get out of the car until he had all of the geese back into their pen.

[John Schmidt]

Re. corn, my son-in-law built a short floating deck out into the pond and attached a separate floating section about 4' square where he placed a large size tub for corn. Found after his first trip out to refill it he needed to nail it down. Between the ducks, geese, and muskrats along with a few mice and squirrels, they go through a lot of corn. The muskrats will undermine the banks nearby so he keeps a pellet gun by the back door. I've picked off a few myself, much to the surprise of he and my daughter. When asked how the "old man" got to be such a good shot, I just tell them I'm old...not blind. Plus being raised with a rifle and doing a lot of hunting as a young man kinda carries over. I picked one off as it was swimming back to the other side of the pond, you should have heard my granddaughter brag on gramps. 

[cookiedough]

yah,  geese are a nuisance everywhere it seems like in every town in the USA.  I wish they would open up a FREE season to shoot a few 1000 of them in my small town.  We have a small lake (or big pond) with an island in the middle fairly big island with a bridge to go over onto the island.  EVERY step, literally EVERY step,  you have to watch where you put foot down is horrible seeing about 1000 geese in about a 100x200 yard small lake in town.  Every week one gets hit by a car along the main hwy. going thru town.  The DNR will not allow the village to get a permit to shoot easily a few 100 of them since is in village limits  with people/houses nearby.  Dogs running around chasing them only make them fly away into the water to come back onto land soon after dogs leave.  Nothing will work besides shooting them which should be allowed NO FEE to the village if the DNR would use common sense.   Get about 50 village residents with 12 gauge BB shot and blast away all at once in the groups of 100 or more for a few hours outta diminish the flock?

A baseball bat if one ever attacks me is waiting for them or if lucky enough to grab one by the neck right behind the head and smash them to the ground is needed like the game WHACK A MOLE.  No wonder our small lake has horrible stenchy weed growth all summer long way too much goose droppings going into the water.

[0leman]

We have a refuge to the south of town about 30 miles away.  We go down there every so often to see what birds are there.   Just one of those get out of town things.

We drove down there Yesterday to see what/who were around.  Saw some 30 Bald Eagles (about half were juveniles which is good to see).  Also some some large flocks of snow geese.  AND lots and lots of Canada geese.   Also saw some 40 sand hill cranes.  Lots of different species of ducks, some who winter there.  What we didn't see was any coyotes or pheasants, which we normally see.

This is the place for these flowl, away from town.  There are fields where farmers grow some grain on the refuge.  They leave strips of the grain untouched as part of the agreement to grow grain.  We do hear geese flocks flying around town every so often, but they tend to stay from our area. 

[cookiedough]

pretty soon geese will be marching down mainstreet in town since the side street next to main street is the lake road next to the main hwy. in our county being the busiest road by far in entire county. 

not to change subject, but anyone think that sandhill cranes will be hunted like the wolves were in WI recently overharvesting them in just a few days over the quota by 100's?   Our entire county there are several 1000's of sandhill cranes around as well see flocks of them weekly since we live near a marshy low lying area which is most of our entire county and town.    It is something to see them fly overhead hearing their wings flap in the wind not so high up over our house very majestic TALL bird sort of prehistoric and their trumpeting voice can be heard from a few 100 yards away.  WE see them every year walking just outside our backyard in the farmers field making all kinds of noise a mere 30 yards away.

Wish the DNR would do the right thing and allow year round harvesting of geese though way way way too many around our area.   Never been attacked by one but the mommies get very vocal when we walk down to our lake in town with young newborn geese walking with their moms.   They always go back into the lake off the land when near them.