Canada geese head tossing

The Canada geese with a broken wing is now in the company of his partner in the park, who didn't leave with the flock in early March to their breeding grounds. He managed to retain two other individuals for a while - maybe offspring from previous years, as Canada Geese have long term family ties - but they ended up leaving. This morning, somebody started feeding the birds on an end of the pond, and I saw the pair of Canada swimming towards the feeding point. Broken Wing was leading his partner. He kept tossing his head every few seconds, and after a few tries I managed to capture the behaviour (above). It felt like a 'hurry up, follow me!' beckoning to female. Indeed, Canada Geese often communicate using head movements. I have covered the pre-flight head tossing, which is accompanied by much calling. When on land, and during the flightless phase of chick rearing during the moulting period, head-tossing by itself indicates readiness to walk or swim and is used especially when they are very motivated to move. Head tossing is very conspicuous due to the white cheek patch, and this is often directed to family members. Individuals head-toss when stationary, appearing to signal to other family members to follow them, including females to young goslings, and the signal is continued during movement. The direction at which the head is tossed is also informative, indicating the direction of movement. Even young goslings - who don't have the white patch - start head tossing in the first day after hatching, signalling their intention to move to other foraging patch. In a situation of threat, e.g. when a predator is located, this visual signalling allows parents to quietly direct their goslings to cover, avoiding attracting unwanted attention by acoustic signals.

More information

Jeffrey M. Black and James H. Barrow, Jr. (1985) Visual signalling in Canada geese for the coordination of family units. Wildfowl, 36, 35-41. Available here.

Broken Wing

This has been an unusual year for Canada Goose in the park. Usually, a flock visits during the winter, roosting elsewhere and returning every morning to enjoy the bread and food given by people. Some time during last winter, one of the geese got injured, its right wing hanging a bit loose on the side (I first noticed it the 16th of January, the photo above is from the 16th of March). The injury, at the base of the wing, prevented it from flying, and it must have happened in the park, maybe due to a collision with a tree branch or a fight with a dog. The bird seemed content, fed well and recovered enough for the injury to be almost unnoticeable. But when the flock decided it was time to depart for the breeding grounds, at mid February, the lame goose stayed behind. All through the summer it has been alone in the park, joining the mallards during feeding time, and probably roosting on the little island at night. I felt for him as geese are such sociable birds.

Part of the Canada Flock returning from the roost in the morning

 The flock of Canada Geese returned last week. I searched for the lame one in the pond, but failed to spot him, it must have mingled with the rest of the geese. I wished I had been there to watch his reaction to, first, the distant honks of the approaching flock, and then to the geese themselves once they landed. Then a couple of days ago, early in the morning, I spotted him with two others, just before most of the flock returned. Again, today, the goose was with a female before the main flock returned. They followed each other closely, like a pair of geese would do. Could it be that this was/is his partner? Geese form strong partnerships and bond through the year, and for many years if not for life. They also recognise many individuals in their flock, including their past offspring. The female goose is actually staying to roost with the lame goose at night, instead of following the flock. Maybe when the migratory urge kicks in spring she will leave with the flock, but maybe not.

The lame goose in the background, with a partner on the 30th of September

My peak count per visit graph for Canada Goose in Pearson Park. If you try you can see a tiny green bar between week 8 and week 39, corresponding to the lame goose. Created with BirdTrack.

Canada goose portrait

I tend to ignore the Canada Geese in my outings to the park and I realised I didn't have any close-ups I was happy with so I got down to my knees this afternoon, at eye level by the pond, and had a session with this intrigued individual.

Canada Geese taking off decisions

This morning, the 60 strong flock of Canada Geese that seemed to have roosted in the park were restless. There were continuous loud grunts and honks and, after a crescendo in which more and more individuals joined in the calling, part of the flock took off in a coordinated way. The vocalising geese were making a decision, with individuals deciding to join or not a party leading the departure, maybe to quieter feeding grounds. It is unclear if the individuals felt hungry or if the several dog walkers had made then nervous (or both!).
  Flocking birds have to travel together to stay in a group to search for new feeding or roosting patches, to avoid predation or to migrate. When the individuals differ in their motivations to move away (some might be hungrier than others, for example), there might be a period in which an a consensus is reached about leaving or staying involving communication of the individuals intentions. An individual that is not hungry might change its mind and join in if most of the flock appear willing to move, so as not to become isolated.
  Dennis Raveling, in a paper in 1969, reported on the behaviour before flock taking off in Canada Geese. He observed a large flock in their natural range, in which 77 geese had been marked and radio tracked, including 10 families. Flock departure was preceded by a ceremony, with the neck stretched, there are quick head tossing movements with the bill pointing up and repeatedly, and the white head patch conspicuously displayed - communicating an intention to fly. Geese often spread and flap their wings and start to walk in the intended direction of flight for a few steps (this video illustrate this behavior). Ganders (adult male geese) were more successful at recruiting his family than any other family members, as a shorted time elapsed from his initiation of head-tossing until the family took flight, although all family members initiated head tossing at some point. In a couple of occasions when an excited immature took flight but the rest of the family did not follow, it flew in a circle and returned with the family shortly.
 Other than the cohesive function of the head-toss ceremony for family members, group vocalisations and wing flapping serves to synchronise the whole flock. The coordination of the flock during take off included the presence of an invisible 'starting line': individuals run until they arrived at the same position at which the individual before them had just taken off (instead of taking off where they were). Raveling hypothesized that the contrast between the white tail coverts and the black tail served as a signal to optimise the position of individuals during flight, quite important in such large birds. Families tended to keep together during flight and their vocalisations then changed from grunting to a more trumpet-like honking.

More information

Dennis G. Raveling (1969). Preflight and Flight Behavior of Canada Geese The Auk, 86, 671-681 DOI: 10.2307/4083454

The hybrid goose in the park

I have known this goose since 2005. It is a hybrid between Canada Goose and possibly Greylag, and it turns up every winter in my local park. Today, it behaved gallantly, chasing away other geese and ducks while its partner, a Canada goose, fed.

The hybrid goose holds the pair of Canada away from the food source, allowing his partner to feed unmolested.

This goose is a large bird, with a mixture of features from both species (see photos of Greylag and Canada below), with the white patch on the face of the Canada, the pink legs of the Greylag and a beak half, black half pink.

A Canada goose

 A Greylag

 I think the hybrid is a male. He is paired with a female Canada and travels with a Canada flock. Hybridisation is a fascinating issue. In a puritanical view of species - which were created, would not change and could be nicely put into separate drawers - hybrids, were viewed as oddities: unnatural, often sterile, hard to put away in a neat drawer. This view has changed a lot lately. Recent genome sequencing data have shown that we humans seem to be a melange of different hominid isolates that mixed when they met; polar bears and brown bears have been shown to have often interbred during the Pleistocene; Carrion Crows and Hooded Crows do it; Willow Grouse and Rock Ptarmigan do it as well. There are many more examples. Natural climatic changes, such as during ice ages, often brings species together facilitating hybridization. Human introductions, placing species that previously didn't come together in the same areas can also promote hybridisation. Hybridisation is not only more frequent in nature than previously thought, but can also fuel species diversification and adaptation.
 Geese hybridisation is interesting as, when young, goslings undergo a phenomenon called imprinting. After hatching, goslings have a sensitive period during which they attach themselves socially to any moving stimulus, and follow it. This usually happen to be their parents, but they will eagerly follow people when goslings are hatced in an incubator. Even their mating preferences are determined to some point early in life, as goslings imprint on the adults that rear them - this is called sexual imprinting - and, when adults, will try and find a mate of the same species of the individuals that reared them. In nature, errors can happen. For example when individuals practice egg parasitism - laying eggs on another species' nest - or a brood from another species is adopted or brood amalgamation, when goslings from  different species pool together and the adults of one of the species take care of them.
 What happens to the fostered brood when they grow up? They imprint on their foster parents, which rear them as if they were their offspring, but they still look like their biological parents. Eric Fabricius carried out an experiment in the wild to examine the effects of sexual imprinting on hybridisation in geese. He swapped all eggs from two nests of Canada geese by Greylag eggs. The cross-fostered Greylags migrated with their Canada parents and upon returning to the breeding ground the following spring they paired up:

Of 35 returning birds, all 16 females paired with greylag goose males (100%) whereas of 19 males 5 paired with Canada goose females (14%) and the remaining 14 with greylag goose females (74%). The pair bonds generally persisted as long as both birds were present, but after loss of a partner, the remaining bird usually re-mated. Even when this happened several times during the lifetime of a male, the new mate was always a Canada goose female, showing that the males were sexually imprinted to this species. The Canada goose females which had mated with the greylag ganders also remated when widowed, but their new mate could be either a Canada goose or a greylag goose.

All cross-fostered females paired with Greylags. They looked like greylags, so they weren't courted by Canada males, just Greylag males. The pattern in the males is interesting, as they probably actively courted Canada females - and some accepted them-  but they were also found attractive by greylag females and they ended up pairing with them. Only the category of cross-fostered males pairing with Canada are likely to father hybrid offspring. What happens to the hybrid offspring is interesting as they do look intermediate between species. If is still unclear if hybrid CanadaxGreylags are fertile. The hybrid in the park then probably had a cross-fostered dad. He appears to have no trouble keeping a mate, and if he is always as considerate in his behaviour as today, she might as well keep him.

References
Fabricius, E. (2010). Interspecific Mate Choice Following Cross-fostering in a Mixed Colony of Greylag Geese (Anser anser) and Canada Geese (Branta canadensis). A Study on Development and Persistence of Species Preferences1 Ethology, 88 (4), 287-296 DOI: 10.1111/j.1439-0310.1991.tb00283.x


Edwards, C., Suchard, M., Lemey, P., Welch, J., Barnes, I., Fulton, T., Barnett, R., O'Connell, T., Coxon, P., Monaghan, N., Valdiosera, C., Lorenzen, E., Willerslev, E., Baryshnikov, G., Rambaut, A., Thomas, M., Bradley, D., & Shapiro, B. (2011). Ancient Hybridization and an Irish Origin for the Modern Polar Bear Matriline Current Biology, 21 (15), 1251-1258 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2011.05.058


Quintela, M., Thulin, C., & Höglund, J. (2010). Detecting hybridization between willow grouse (Lagopus lagopus) and rock ptarmigan (L. muta) in Central Sweden through Bayesian admixture analyses and mtDNA screening Conservation Genetics, 11 (2), 557-569 DOI: 10.1007/s10592-009-0040-9