Decorah Geese and Blogs

March 11, 2024: Two Canada Goose eggs in N1!

March 11, 2024: A second egg for the geese!

We have a twist! Two geese – presumably the same pair that HM has been trying to evict! – laid an egg in N1 on Saturday night, followed up by a second late this afternoon. We don’t know whether we’ll get another goose couple in N2B, whether these geese previously nested in N2B, or whether HM will keep paying attention to N1, especially since she is most likely incubating her own eggs at this point. It will take about a

March 4, 2024: NestFlix and News!

March 3, 2024: HM on the Y-Branch. She's not nesting here this year, but she doesn't seem interested in letting geese have it, either!

It’s been a busy few days for everybirdy! We have eggs at Decorah North, Fort St. Vrain, and Trempealeau; an ever-changing group of female falcons trying to catch Newman’s attention (Lisa has so far chased them all off); Canada Geese looking at N1 (HM says absolutely not), and falcons showing up at every site we watch. I’m still trying to get band numbers at our sites, so please give me an email if you get one! We’re estimating hatch in

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

Won't you be my neighbor? A Pileated Woodpecker plays peek-a-boo at the North Nest.

Bald Eagles play an important role in ecosystems. They stand on top of the food chain or web, are generalist hunters who consume and produce carrion, and are a keystone species: a species that is vital to the health of its ecosystem. We know and write about their trophic relationships, but we don’t often consider the importance of their nests to other species. Alternate, abandoned, or in use, large bald eagle nests stand for many years and serve as homes,

February 5, 2024: News and NestFlix from Decorah North and Decorah

February 25, 2024: Eagle Yoga and a lovely look at primary feathers

We’re not pacing the delivery room floor yet, but with an estimated 11 days until egg number one, we’re practicing our breathing exercises! Mr. North and DNF are piling up multiple layers of soft, fluffy grass and shredded husks for their egg cup, adding the final touches to their nestery, and bonding more frequently and intensely. Whatever the date, eggs aren’t far off! I think everyone’s noticed the number of Canada Geese at the hatchery right now. You’ll be happy

2023 RRP Highlights: Make Way for Goslings!

April 18, 2023: Mother Goose!

We’re looking back on 2023’s favorite things! In my experience, watchers either love them or loathe the Canada Geese. I grew up around geese and understand why some people don’t like them. But I’m in the heart-eyes-emoji camp! These geese are nesting in an abandoned bald eagle nest that we call N2B. Mom and her mate DM2 last nested here in 2020. After they left to build a new nest, N2B sat empty until a pair of geese adopted it

Goose Cam Shutdown Announcement

April 26, 2023: Mother Goose and gosling

We’re shutting down the goose cam! The goslings leapt on April 26th and the occasional visitors to N2B don’t appear interested in laying eggs. If anything changes, we can turn it back on. Thanks so much for watching the geese with us this year! If you’d like to relive the goslings (so cute!), we have a video: https://youtu.be/K8CfsP4Zyu4. If you’d like to read more about them, follow this link: https://www.raptorresource.org/tag/canada-goose/. And click here for other birds to watch and follow:

April 27, 2023: The injured gosling

We’re sorry to let everyone know that six didn’t make it. In reviewing the footage, it appears the gosling hit a branch on the way down and suffered a severe spinal injury. We can remove logs and dead wood from the bottom of the tree, but we can’t do much about large living limbs and we aren’t going to discourage nesting in N2B. Five out of six goslings survived the jump. This translates to a survival rate of 83%, which

April 26, 2023: The goslings make the leap of faith!

April 26, 2023: The goslings this morning shortly before MG left the nest. When they didn't jump yesterday - they were pretty rambunctious! - we thought it might happen early this morning. But we were still surprised at how quickly it went!

The goslings jumped this morning at about 7:29 AM. After watching them yesterday afternoon, we thought the jump might occur pretty early today, but we were still surprised at how quickly it happened! Within just a few minutes of MG’s departure, all of the goslings had joined their parents on the ground. Our camera operators were only able to find five of them, so we headed into the underbrush to find #6 hidden under a log. We tried reuniting little

April 25, 2023: Gosling Hatch!

April 25, 2023: Goslings!

Goose hatch started yesterday and we think they might leap today! Some videos: April 24, 2023: 1st gosling hatch 2:27 pm: https://youtu.be/MG7EIs2Xrec April 24, 2023: 7:28pm Decorah Goose Cam: https://youtu.be/NnQvLmSl9tw April 24, 2023: Decorah Geese. And then there were 2! https://youtu.be/sDKV2p9lqmI April 24, 2023: Two hatches at Decorah Goose Cam! https://youtu.be/J6JOCgYQO0k April 25, 2023: Decorah Goose Cam~Ma Goose Tosses Egg Shell Off Nest-You Can Hear It Land: https://youtu.be/23755A7FFbs April 25, 2023: Precious goslings peeking out: https://youtu.be/X5HjEKk_J3I April 25, 2023: Good

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