Snooze time for a Greylag pair

The large wintering Greylag flock in my local park has now disintegrated into pairs, which have moved onto their breeding areas. The last few times the flock was around there were many fights as males started to become very aggressive towards other males. There are now just up to three pairs remaining, sometimes just the one. Yesterday, they were resting with the resident Canada Pair in the lake island where they are less disturbed by dogs and people.
 This pair, is easily recognisable by the male's black bill tip. In ducks, swans and geese the thickened tip of the bill is called a nail. In grey geese, juveniles have a dark nail, while in adults the nail is pale (so I have named this unusual male Black Nail). They are illustrating that paired geese tend to stay close together and do the same things at the same time: rest together, travel together, feed together. Research on the semi-tame Greylag flock established by Konrad Lorenz in Austria, showed that bonded pairs also carry out complementary behaviours, for example males are vigilant while females are foraging or resting. Pairs that had successfully reared offspring together differed from unsuccessful pairs in that they showed more reciprocation: females are vigilant when male feeds more often than in unsuccessful pairs.
  Unlike corvids or parrots, in which mutual grooming is important to keep the pair bond, geese never groom each other, in fact, I don't think I have even seen a pair of geese in actual physical contact (e.g. roosting against each other like pigeons or crows do). Instead, they are social allies, they rely on each other's support against rivals or intruders, and carrying out ritualised triumph ceremonies afterwards. In the Konrad Lorenz flock, although successful and unsuccessful pairs had a similar within-pair distances (keeping within one meter of each other), when previously successful pairs failed a breeding attempt, they remained closer together, showing a tighter social bond.

Eyes open

Eyes half close

In this video you can see an aggressive male chasing away other geese in the flock (taken 27th February 2015).



More information
Scheiber, I. B., Kotrschal, K., Hemetsberger, J., & Weiß, B. M. (Eds.). (2013). The Social Life of Greylag Geese. Cambridge University Press.