Tag Archives: Canada Goose

Your questions, answered: the goslings and the leap of faith

April 28, 2022: A soft place to land!

Gosling hatch is right around the corner (April 22nd) and we’re getting a lot of questions about the gosling Leap of Faith. Will the goslings jump? How will they survive? Are they really ready to leave the nest? Read on for the answers to your questions! Will the goslings really jump? They will!  Watch for The Leap of Faith to happen roughly 24 to 48 hours after hatch. Mother Goose will leave the nest and both parents will start vocalizing.

Canada Geese: Precocial versus Altricial

April 28, 2022: The goslings about 36 hours after hatch.

As watchers know, Canada geese are nesting in an abandoned bald eagle nest in Decorah, Iowa. N2B – currently a goose nest – is located about 700 feet east of N1, where HM and HD are nesting. We believe that hatch will begin on or around Saturday, April 22. You can watch that nest here; https://www.raptorresource.org/birdcams/decorah-goose-cam/. This blog discusses some of the differences between altricial eagles and precocial geese!  Altricial eaglets rely on parental care until they fledge. But goslings

Goose Jump Highlights!

April 28, 2022: The goslings about 36 hours after hatch.

We arrived at the hatchery around 7am on Thursday, April 28, and set up camp under our canopy in rain and 37 degree temperatures. At around 11:10, Mama Goose stood up and jumped for the first time. Not long after she and Papa started calling to their goslings, the eagles at N1 flew over, stooping close enough to the nest to worry us and the geese! Mother Goose came right back and settled over her young until about 12:15, when

As The Nest Turns: Decorah

April 11, 2022: The new eagles. He's left, she's right, and they look a lot like Mom and DM2. I can see some subtle differences up close and we're working on iris fleck and feather catalogs.

If you’ve been watching the Decorah Eaglecam, you know that a new eagle pair appears to be settling into the starter nest we built at N1. I’ll be honest: a lot of us have mixed feelings about that! We hoped the nest would lure Mom and DM2 back to the hatchery, but they chose to nest in N3 again this spring. Still, their behavior this fall gave us a little bit hope that they might make a different decision in

Decorah Eagles/Canada Goose Update!

April 5, 2022: Mother Goose covers her eggs before taking an incubation break

Please join us on the Confusion Couch for another episode of ‘As The Nest Turns’! As you probably know, we have two active nests in Decorah right now (N2B and N3), and a new eagle couple is house-hunting at N1. Mother Goose has six eggs that we think will begin hatching on or around April 25. The big leap should happen within about 24 hours of hatch and we plan to have people down there to protect the geese if

‘House Hunters’ or ‘As The Nest Turns’? The latest from Decorah…

April 1, 2022: The cast of characters!

‘House Hunters’ or ‘As The Nest Turns’? Why not both! If you’ve been watching the Decorah Eagles, you know a Canada Goose is incubating six eggs in N2B and we’ve seen a pair of eagles in and around N1 for a couple of weeks. We initially identified them as Mom and DM2, although we wondered why they were so far from their nest after full incubation began. But the couple at N1 last night were clearly not Mom and DM2!

A Canada Goose egg in the Decorah Eagles nest!

March 24, 2022: A Canada Goose egg in the Decorah Eagles nest!

Mother goose laid her first egg in the Decorah Eagle nest on Thursday, March 24, at around 8:30 AM. After laying the egg, she concealed it under dirt, leaves, and sticks, burying it so completely that I initially wondered where the egg went! Covering her egg helps protect it from predators and lets her delay incubation until she’s laid the full clutch. She will most likely lay egg #2 some time on March 25, or about 35 hours after egg

More Visitors at N2B!

May 11, 2021: A Canada Goose at N2B

We’ve seen a Canada goose nesting up on hatchery rock for at least the last couple of years. But now one is interested interested in N2B! It appears to be checking out the nest pretty seriously at 5:54, settling into a shallow depression and taking the nest bowl for a brief spin before flying out. Did the goose create the scrape? While we didn’t see it on camera, we think it did! We checked over past footage and did not