Canada Goose

About the Canada Goose

A big, familiar goose that almost everyone knows on sight, the Canada Goose wears a black head and long black neck set off by a bold white chinstrap, over a pale brown body and a white rear. Its deep, musical honking - given on the water and in flight - is one of the classic sounds of the changing seasons.

Canada Geese are grazers, cropping grasses, sedges, grain, and aquatic plants, and they travel and rest in tight-knit family groups and larger flocks. Strong, straight fliers, they cross the sky in the shifting V-formations that mark the turning of fall and spring.

In Texas the Canada Goose is mostly a cool-season bird, gathering from fall through winter on lakes, park ponds, reservoirs, and stubble fields, where flocks graze the grass and glean waste grain.

A note from behind the lens: flocks on a park lake or a harvested field are approachable with a slow, low approach. Get to water level for reflections, watch for wing-stretches and takeoffs, and use early or late light to warm the scene and separate the birds from a busy background.