Friday, May 29, 2009

Population explosion

Heidi (aka Red) and I visited our local county park a few weeks ago. We had not been there since November, so we were fairly certain that we would see a variety of birds we may not have seen last fall. We didn't know what to expect, except we thought there should be some birds nesting in Vasona County Park in Los Gatos. We both have Mondays off which helps when one wants to visit a popular spot. After walking about a mile on a trail that follows Vasona Lake, (this is the back way in), we finally approached the main part of the park. On this day there was a group of school kids with parents and teachers having a picnic. And there are always lots of bikers and runners along the trail and within the park. We didn't see any others with binoculars and cameras. Little do they realize how much they miss when they aren't looking around their environment. Everyone seems to be in a hurry to get from point A to point B. Oh well. Anyway, I wanted to present a few parents and their offspring in this post. It was funny to see a couple of Canada geese swimming in the lake and then proceed to go past a lot of people guiding their little blessed events to a grassy area to feed. One thing for sure. They were not afraid of humans!

Here is a gosling all by himself/herself. I'm sure mom and/or dad was nearby. Two surprises with this visit was the number of adult Canada geese waddling around with their offspring. There were so many of them, and each family had a varied number of offspring. The other surprise was the difference in the size of the chicks/goslings. Some looked like they had barely hatched, and others looked like they were 2-3 weeks old. Any idea how old this little one is?
Here is one parent with just three little hatchlings. You can click on any of the photos to see a larger image.
Here are mom and dad with their 5 little goslings swimming toward the edge of the lake to head off to feed in a grassy area.
Here is another family of 5.
And look at this prolific family! Ten little chicks!
Here is another family of ten. Notice these chicks are larger than the previous photo.
You have to enlarge this one! Count the number of chicks - how many do you see? Heidi and I think this may have been a combination of two families, but we're not certain of that. Heidi thinks there was at least one "stray" chick that joined the group, but they all look the same size to me. What do you think?

11 comments:

Linda in Erie said...

I counted 11 little ones. They look pretty much the same size. We saw some combined families of Canada Geese and I'm pretty sure they do adopt and/or baby sit each other's babies. They are sure cute when they are young. Look how proud they are strolling along parading those babies right in front of you.

Ruth's Photo Blog said...

Canada Geese are such great photo subjects as they are not afraid of humans.Your photos are so well done.
Blessings,Ruth

Lynne at Hasty Brook said...

You have such a mix of ages. They"re cute when little and yellow but grow quikly to that gangly, gray stage.

Anonymous said...

They are so cute - little baby fluff balls!

Shelley said...

So nice to see all the different babies! 10 babies would be hard to handle!! LOL!!

misa said...

Hi,my name is Misa. I used to live in Los Gatos. Thank you for letting me recall happy memory in CA. I attended at WVC like your son, Tim. Once I bought three or four of his blue pottery works and still love them. Is he still interested in pottery? I didn't take pottery class at WVC, but some of my Japanese friends told me they were in the same class with him. If my memory was wrong, please forgive me.

RuthieJ said...

I love these pictures Mary! especially the second one with the little ones marching along behind their mom.

mon@rch said...

Stunning!

Adam R. Paul said...

Cute goslings! I've also noticed that they seem to hatch across a long period of time (a couple of months).

Mary said...

Mary, I like your new look! See how long I've been away from reading blogs? I've missed so much.

Nothing sweeter than watching clumsy ducklings.


Mary

Anonymous said...

Adorable photos!! I see a lot of geese, but never saw their babies. So sweet! Thanks for sharing.

 

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