Geese

Back to  Home Page

The first goose below is a greylag at WWT Slimbridge.  What better start to a goose page?  And what better place to see so many different geese?

Geese have been associated with people since women and men domesticated them thousands of years ago.  Not only do they provide eggs and meat, but they also make superb guards.  Most people also know of the pre-historic attempt at non-sustainable husbandry that resulted in the extinction of the legendary goose Anser aurovifer (Fabergé), sometimes called the golden-egg goose.

The second picture shows that domestication does not prevent the geese from remembering the ancient rule – one feeding – one watching.  The other pictures show more members of the group.  In the fourth picture the geese are making their presence felt as they emerge from the water – they seem to have quite strong personalities.  

Perhaps this is one reason that many people find geese, like swans, so attractive.  The social nature of geese must have helped.  And yet, as with the frog and toad (Frogs), the goose and swan play a very different role in the human imagination.  It is the swan, and not the goose, that glides eternally on the deep dark water between this world and the next, in the Swan of Tuonela, composed by Sibelius.  It could not be otherwise.  And a ballet called Goose Lake or Duck Lake would be unthinkable.  But the goose does appear in a fair share of myths, legends and stories.  People in Europe eat frogs legs and geese, but not toads legs and swans.  The goose was the sacred animal of the ancient Egyptian earth god, Geb.  Gengen-Were was an Egyptian goose-god.

The human race cannot resist projecting its own imagination on to animals, with little apparent regard to logic.  Looking at greeting cards and ornaments, what is the relative popularity of the three wildfowl groups, ducks, geese and swans?  What about frogs and toads?  And when did you last see a reptile or spider on a greetings card?  Insects also get the teatment.  Butterflies, dragonflies and ladybirds do well, but little else.  A similar effect is seen in jewellery.

The Canada Goose – Branta canadensis

The Canada Goose is a magnificent goose which excites quite strong feelings, both positive and negative, in many people.  Who can remain unmoved to see a skein of geese flying in, honking and whiffling, after their long journey from a distant land?  But if it is your crop or your lawn that they have seen, you may feel differently.  The lawn is one of the symbols of control over nature, a civilized version of the rabbit-cropped field.  The immaculate bowling green, the ancient college lawn or cathedral close, and the grass around the office or factory, are pointers to the  need to recreate the world and to hold off the encroachment of wildness that follows even the slightest relaxation, as any gardener knows.  

To the hungry geese the grass may looks rather like the short vegetation of the far north, and they are going to go for it.  But they are about as welcome there as a mole at Wimbledon.  Worse still, other species may attack the farmers’ crops, and the droppings are bad for the soil.

The Greylag Goose – Anser anser

This is the goose from which domestic white geese are descended.  Like the Canada geese they are attentive and watchful parents.

WWT  Slimbridge  offers a chance to view the intricate plumage of many bird species at close quarters.  

Links to Slimbridge     Slimbridge    Slimbridge map

The hides at Slimbridge enable the birds to get a really good look at the flightless humans who lurk inside.  (See picture below.)  The geese are glad of the strange habit, unique to humans, of throwing away bags of perfectly good food, purely for the pleasure of seeing it eaten by geese.

I have spotted a couple of humans in a hide.  This peculiar species pays to sit and freeze, while trying to spot one unusual goose among thousands of others.

Back to Home Page    Ducks & Swans

Links about geese Goose Links

Goose Flight

How does a goose fly?  It uses the same structure, the wing, that all flying birds use, from humming-birds to albatrosses.  Some birds, such as penguins, use them under water.  The wing is an aerofoil, one of peoples’ oldest inventions.  The sails of many kinds of boats, developed in many lands, are aerofoils,as are the propellors of boats and ships.  So are the propellors, rotors and wings of aircraft, and the blades of the compressors and turbines of jet engines and steam turbines.  Windmills were crude versions of  aerofoils.  Even the office fan uses aerofoils.

How does an aerofoil work?  This can be looked at in different ways.  Even a flat plate at an angle to the air flow will generate lift, so any explanation must include that example.

One way is connected with the speed of flow of the air.  The air over the top of the wing goes faster than the air underneath, and it doesn’t "join up" after passing the wing – it finishes up further back from the wing than the flow underneath.  Faster means more kinetic energy, and in order to conserve total energy, the faster air loses pressure.  So the air on top has lower pressure than the air below.  There is a net upward pressure.   The same effect acts on a back-spun table-tennis ball.  An aerofoil fools the air into thinking that it is a rotating object.  Some sailing ships have actually used rotating cylinders instead of sails.  

Another way to look at the aerofoil is to see that just before arriving at the wing the air starts to curve upwards, and as it leaves  it curves down.  Changing the direction of a moving object, even air, requires a force – the contortions of a shot-putter swinging the shot in a circle show this very well.  The wing sends the air down, and by reaction the wing feels an upward force.  This downdraft is not normally apparent, except when the wing stays roughly in the same place, as with a hovering helicopter.

The downdraft ends at the wingtips – there it transforms into tip vortices.  These can sometimes be seen at air displays when fighters make tight turns.  They can sometimes be seen when your airliner lands in very damp air.  Vortices may appear at the wing-tips or at the ends of the flaps.

The big difference between flapping flight and gliding is that at all times except when whiffling and braking, the wings must be in the correct orientation with respect to the air.  As they go up and down they are constantly twisting one way and then the other.  The bird is not rowing – the action is much more like sculling with a single oar at the back of a boat.

Links about bird flight Bird Flight    Links about geese Goose Links

Back to Home Page    Ducks & Swans