STAGE 3
Branta Canadensis
its chin, and a brown body. Extremely adept at living in human-altered areas, Canada geese have established breeding colonies in urban and cultivated habitats, which provide food and few natural predators. The success of this common park species has led to it often being considered a pest species. This is because of its excrement, its depredation of crops, its noise, its aggressive territorial behavior toward both humans and other animals, and its habit of stalking and begging for food. The last is a result of humans disobeying artificial feeding policies toward wild animals. The black head and neck with a white "chinstrap" distinguish the Canada goose from all other goose species except the cackling goose and barnacle goose. (The latter, however, has a black breast and gray rather than brownish body plumage.) Some Canada geese come with a pepper-spotted or brown neck with brown plumage, and these are assumed to be a leucistic variety. On occasion, individuals with dark cheeks, white foreheads or white necks may be seen.
Branta Canadensis exhibits several primary behaviours in the urban setting:
is a large species of goose with a black head, neck, white cheeks, white under
it crosses with absolute conviction and zero acknowledgement that the road belongs to anyone else. It steps off the kerb slowly, deliberately, and at an angle that maximises the distance travelled across active traffic, the entire family unit spread wide enough to occupy multiple lanes simultaneously. It does not look both ways. It does not hurry. It is aware of the stationary vehicles and has made a conscious decision that this is not its problem.
Horns do nothing. Eye contact does nothing. The goose has assessed the situation and concluded that it has the right of way, and it is, technically, correct.
In Movement
occurs in the open spaces of the city in the manner of animals with nowhere pressing to be and no particular anxiety about it. Small groups of four or five will hold a stretch of pavement for the better part of an afternoon, moving only when directly stepped upon and occasionally not even then. The dominant individuals position themselves closest to any likely food source, a dropped wrapper, the spirit of a sandwich, while subordinate birds orbit the periphery, edging inward incrementally whenever attention lapses. There is a loose social order at work, though it is enforced with minimal effort on all sides. Occasional disputes break out over scraps, brief and vigorous, all ruffled feathers and stabbing beaks, resolved within seconds and apparently forgotten immediately. For the most part they exist in a state of low-level companionship, tolerating one another's proximity without any particular warmth. They pick. They pace. They stand. The city moves at considerable speed around them and they remain, as ever, resolutely still at the centre of it; small, iridescent, and entirely at ease in a habitat they did not build and have never once been asked to leave.
Mass Loitering
Critical Links
