Geese

When you’re considering security options for your farm, you’re probably considering the obvious: alarm system, gate alarm, dog, automatic lights, security cameras, but have you considered the humble goose?

It's open season for Canada geese in Illinois from mid-October to mid-January. Unfortunately for hunters, Canada geese are finding a new way to stay out of the line of fire. Rather than being 'sitting ducks' in a rural pond, they're setting up residence in the city.

The Canada goose (Branta canadensis) is a large wild goose species with a black head and neck, white cheeks, white under its chin, and a brown body. Native to arctic and temperate regions of North America, its migration occasionally reaches northern Europe.

Get the full story behind the familiar Canada goose. Learn how human wildlife management spurred their century-long comeback.

Learn how to identify Canada Goose, its life history, cool facts, sounds and calls, and watch videos. The big, black-necked Canada Goose with its signature white chinstrap mark is a familiar and widespread bird of fields and parks. Thousands of “honkers” migrate north and south each year, filling the sky with long V-formations. But as lawns have proliferated, more and more of these grassland-adapted birds are staying put in urban and suburban areas year-round, where some people regard them as pests.

Our database includes 584 of the more than 700 regularly occurring North American bird species.

Learn how to identify Snow Goose, its life history, cool facts, sounds and calls, and watch videos. Watching huge flocks of Snow Geese swirl down from the sky, amid a cacophony of honking, is a little like standing inside a snow globe. These loud, white-and-black geese can cover the ground in a snowy blanket as they eat their way across fallow cornfields or wetlands. Among them, you might see a dark form with a white head—a color variant called the “Blue Goose.” Snow Geese have skyrocketed in numbers and are now among the most abundant waterfowl on the continent.

Learn how to identify Brant, its life history, cool facts, sounds and calls, and watch videos. An abundant small goose of the ocean shores, the Brant breeds in the high Arctic tundra and winters along both coasts. The Brant along the Atlantic have light gray bellies, while those off the Pacific Coast have black bellies and were at one time considered a separate species.

Saturday, November 11, 2017 - 10:00 am to 12:30 pm. What are all those ducks and geese around the Refuge?

What better way to kick off a year list, than with wildfowl, the staple of the British winter! Wildfowl are a species-rich group of birds which can help to bolster any bird list, be it for day in the field or a whole year. They can be conveniently subdivided based mainly on size, to swans (the biggest ones), geese (mid-size) and ducks.