Although Canada geese (Branta canadensis) seem ubiquitous around here, this has not always been the case. Today, many resident, nonmigratory geese live here year-round. But the numbers of Canada geese, migratory or not, have increased and decreased dramatically over the years.
When Europeans first settled these shores, Canada geese were abundant. Thomas Morton described what he saw in the early 1600s in what is today Quincy:
There are Geese … which are as big and bigger than the tame Geese of England; the flesh far more excellent, than the Geese of England, wild or tame. There is of them great abundance. I have had often 1000 before the mouth of my gun, I never saw any in England for my part so fat, as I have killed there in those parts, the fethers of them makes a bed, softer than any down bed that I have lyen on: … the fethers of the Geese that I have killed in a short time, have paid for all the powther and shot, I have spent in a year, and I have fed my dogs with as fat Geese there, as I have ever fed upon myself in England.
William Wood in the travelogue New Englands Prospect, 1634, describes migratory Canada geese that overwintered in the Lynn area:
with a black neck, and a black and white head, strong of flight; these be a great deal bigger than the ordinary Geese of England, some very fat, and in the Spring so full of Feathers, that the shot can scarce pierce them; most of these Geese remain with us from Michelmas [Sept. 29] to April; … they feed on the sea of Fish … the accurate marksmen kill of these both flying and sitting.
But hunters in the 1700s and 1800s pursued these geese so doggedly that their numbers declined. By the 1800s, Canada geese no longer overwintered in our area and were only transient visitors as they migrated overhead in the spring and fall. According to William Brewster in The Birds of the Cambridge Region of Massachusetts (1906):
Canada Geese may still be seen or heard nearly every spring and autumn, passing high in air over the Cambridge Region on their northward and southward migrations. Although observed much less often than formerly, they continue to appear in considerable numbers, attracting general attention by their imposing flight and wild, musical clamor …
Since my earliest recollection no large flocks of Geese have been known to visit our ponds, but small flocks and single birds used to alight rather frequently, and still do so occasionally, in Fresh, Spy and the Mystic Ponds …
I remember … forty years ago … a large flock of Geese alighted, during a snowstorm, on Strawberry Hill near the southern shores of Fresh Pond. These birds, it was said, had become so exhausted and so loaded with damp snow that numbers of them were killed with clubs.
And, in case you thought warm winters occurred only recently, according to the Cambridge Chronicle, in one unusual year, 1889, Canada geese migrated south much later than normal (in late January):
Those aerial prophets, the wild geese, have commenced, weeks later than usual, their flight southward. This indicates the approach at last of seasonable weather. Thus far we have enjoyed a truly remarkable season. In the neighboring town of Melrose, and doubtless in other places in this vicinity, the narcissus and kindred Spring flowers have started into untimely and brief life in this abnormal mid-Winter.
Today, there are two populations of Canada geese in the Northeast, including migratory Canada geese who leave their breeding grounds in Labrador and Newfoundland when the weather becomes harsh and fly south along the coast to overwinter from New Hampshire to New Jersey. In the winter, migratory and nonmigratory geese live in Massachusetts.
Unlike most other bird species, Canada geese can digest grass. So they congregate on large expanses of grass in parks, golf courses and ball fields. (They especially like bluegrass.)
Some of the nonmigratory geese who live here all yearlong descend from geese that hunters used as live decoys to lure the migrators. Hunters imported these live geese from other areas. Many of the imported geese were a large, hardy subspecies of the Canada goose – the giant Canada goose. Because these geese are so large, they withstand colder temperatures better than smaller geese and don’t have to go anywhere to stay warm.
Hunters shackled the feet of a decoy goose and put a harness on the bird. They attached the harness to a wooden stake in the ground. The live decoy geese were extremely effective, as M. Coffey wrote in 1934:
That first call of the decoy was the beginning of Bedlam … Running his head along the ground like a snake, he talked low and enticing. Then he would shoot that long neck up into the air and tell those approaching geese just how good that green rye tasted. The flock answered him as it began to look things over. First one goose honked a time or two and then it sounded as though each one was doing its best to drown out the others.
Just a year later, the federal government banned hunters from using live decoy geese and more than 15,000 were released into the wild. Because these geese did not migrate, they began nesting in the area instead. Goose populations increased until there were too many in the Eastern part of the state, but few in the Central and Western parts. To combat this, beginning in the 1960s and ending in 1976, MassWildlife moved geese from coastal areas into Central and Western Massachusetts. This made goose hunters very happy, while the transplanted geese found abundant grasses to eat and had few predators. A population explosion occurred. Today the population of breeding, nonmigratory Canada geese on the Atlantic coast is more than 1 million, according to Rutgers experts Joseph Paulin and, of all names, David Drake.
Canada geese in Eastern Massachusetts tend not to migrate, but they move to places where the water is not frozen. Canada geese in Western Massachusetts are more likely to migrate, joining flocks traveling south from Canada. These commonly overwinter in Long Island Sound or Chesapeake Bay.
You can’t really tell migratory from nonmigratory geese apart just by looking at them (although migratory geese tend to be smaller). You can tell by behavior, though: The geese that breed here in the spring and summer are resident geese who will not go far in the winter.
Reader photo
Reader Jamie Ann Gordon spotted this woolly bear caterpillar in Canada in early October.
Have you taken photos of our urban wild things? Send your images to Cambridge Day and we may use them as part of a future feature. Include the photographer’s name and the general location where the photo was taken.
Jeanine Farley is an educational writer who has lived in the Boston area for more than 30 years. She enjoys taking photos of our urban wild things.
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