Geese on Earth

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Winnipeg is a prime rest stop for migratory birds. (WAYNE.GLOWACKI@FREEPRESS.MB.CA)

The distinctive "honk! honk! honk!" and the V shapes strung across the sky are as much a part of autumn in Manitoba as frosty mornings and golden leaves.

About 1.5 million migrating geese pass through the province at this time of year, bound for wintering grounds in states as close by as Minnesota, and as far off as Florida.

"That's more than the population of people in Manitoba," says Katrina Froese, science interpreter at FortWhyte Alive.

A dozen geese winging overhead can make us feel wistful about the passing of summer.

But thousands of them, in majestic flocks that spend nights on our wetlands, can make for a stirring spectacle as they land at dusk and take off at dawn. Their combined honking creates a wild cacophony that many Manitobans find awe-inspiring.

"It is a phenomenal sound," says Paula Grieef, resident naturalist at Oak Hammock Marsh. "It's the sound of migration, to me, that makes it an awesome experience."

Winnipeg is on a major migration pathway known as the Mississippi Flyway. When you include ducks, gulls and swans along with the geese, something like two million birds funnel through each fall.

We're fortunate to have two nature preserves, FortWhyte Alive and Oak Hammock Marsh, that stand out as "big splotches of water" from a goose-eye perspective, says Froese. "We see a lot of (waterfowl) action here compared to some other cities," she says.

Oak Hammock's Grieef agrees that Winnipeggers are lucky to have the two close-at-hand wetland areas that migrating waterfowl use for staging.

That term refers to the birds' ritual of stopping for a layover of 10 days or so, to rest and fatten up for the long flight ahead. During the daytime, they graze on surrounding fields. At sunset, they descend en masse onto lakes or marshes to sleep. At sunrise, they lift off for another day of foraging.

Both FortWhyte and Oak Hammock have interpretive centres and offer fall goose-observation programs for the whole family. Here are five of the questions posed most frequently to interpreters:

QUESTION: Why do geese spend the night bunched together on the water?

ANSWER: It keeps them safe from predators, says Froese.

Q: What signals them to leave their summer nesting grounds and head for a staging area?

A: The trigger is not cooling temperatures, but shortening days. Geese are closely attuned to the "photo period," the duration of daylight. Many people think they migrate because of the cold, but it's actually because their food gets covered by snow and ice. They can survive Winnipeg's winter if they're fed, but the public should not feed them, partly because they can become aggressive pests if the food stops.

Q: What kinds of geese migrate through Winnipeg?

A: Mainly two subspecies of Canada goose -- the giant and the lesser -- and the small, short-beaked Richardson (Cackling) goose. The giants migrate to places such as Minnesota and Michigan; the lessers to states such as Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Missouri and Tennessee; and the Richardsons fly the farthest, from Baffin Island to states bordering the Gulf of Mexico. White snow geese are rarely spotted within city limits at FortWhyte, but come through Oak Hammock in large numbers.

Q: How do geese navigate to find the same nesting ground and wintering ground, year after year?

A: They're mostly visual navigators, using landmarks such as bodies of water and the position of the sun and stars. But they also have iron-rich tissue in their brains that can sense changes in the Earth's magnetic field and act as a compass.

Q: I went to FortWhyte at sundown, or Oak Hammock at sunrise/sundown, and only saw a few hundred geese, not thousands. What's up with that?

A: Mother Nature isn't Andrew Lloyd Webber. She can't guarantee the same spectacle every dawn and dusk. Oak Hammock's Grieef says this year it seems as though the geese are arriving each evening in "family groups" of about 12 to 25, rather than massive waves. Keep in mind that the FortWhyte nature preserve and the marsh cover large areas, so huge numbers of waterfowl may land or take off beyond your vantage point.

alison.mayes@freepress.mb.ca

When to see them 

Here's a gander at the goose-migration programs at Winnipeg's two wetland centres:

FortWhyte Alive

FortWhyte Alive is located off McCreary Road near the intersection of Kenaston and McGillivray. About 18,000 geese stage on the nature centre's man-made lakes in the course of migration season.

FortWhyte's Dinner & A Show event, which combines a Manitoba-cuisine meal in the Buffalo Stone Café with the sunset goose flight, is so popular it's sold out for this fall.

FortWhyte's public Sunset Goose Flight program runs Wednesday to Sunday until Oct. 25 (no program on Thanksgiving Monday). Plan to arrive at least 45 minutes before sunset and go to the Interpretive Centre. There's a goose-themed PowerPoint presentation that starts progressively earlier as sunset gets earlier. Snacks and drinks, such as bison smokies, popcorn and hot chocolate, are sold on the deck.

Admission is $5 (seniors $4, children $3, carload $15). The geese arrive about 30 minutes after sunset, but if it's cloudy, they tend to coincide with sunset. Check www.fortwhyte.org for each day's sunset and presentation time. FortWhyte's gates are closed in the early morning, so there is no sunrise viewing there.

This long weekend, FortWhyte is holding Harvest Days, which includes a truckload birdseed and honey sale all weekend and horse-drawn wagon rides on Monday.

Oak Hammock Marsh

Oak Hammock Marsh is located 20 minutes north of Winnipeg near the junction of Highways 67 and 220 (see www.oakhammockmarsh.ca for a map). At the peak of fall migration (probably reached last week), about 160,000 Canada geese, as well as thousands of ducks and snow geese, stage there.

Oak Hammock's interpretive centre is not open at sunrise, but visitors are free to watch the geese lift off any morning.

Oak Hammock has its migration PowerPoint presentation daily at 6 p.m. until about Oct. 25. At 6:30, the audience moves to the rooftop observation deck for the night fly-in. As at FortWhyte, cloudy weather brings the geese earlier than 30 minutes past sunset. The café is open for meals and snacks until 7:30 p.m. Admission is $6 (seniors $5, youth $4, family $20).

Oak Hammock's popular four-course Fall Migration Dinners have ended for the season.

This weekend, Oak Hammock has special Thanksgiving programming, including an all-weekend birdseed sale, guided marsh walks and horse-drawn wagon rides Sunday and Monday

Oct. 18 at 7:30 p.m., the Migration Farewell Concert formally wraps up the season. A classical string quartet performs along with a migration slide show and there's wine, cheese and a silent auction. Tickets are $30 (members $25) at 467-3300.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 11, 2009 B6