We live in Illinois along the Mississippi flyway. We live on the Rock River which connects to the Mississippi and there is a bird habitat island behind our house where migrating birds stop. I’ve observed Canadian Geese migrating already this week. At first I thought it wasn’t possible, but we drove through the park near our house tonight and there were about 100 Canadian Geese down there (pooping everywhere!) My understanding is that they don’t usually begin their fall migration till September and we don’t usually see them till October and November. Anybody else seen this? What’s going on?
I live in Indiana, near the Illinois border and cutting Indiana in half horizontally. I saw a flock of Canadian geese flying just today. I am originally from Michigan and I kinda freaked seeing them here this early in the season—kinda weird, all things considered??
Mother of Five - I used to live in Valparaiso and remember seeing lots of Canadian geese there too. This just seems too early and I’m worrying about what they’re bringing with them.
I am so glad to hear people observing this because I have noticed all sorts of species of birds in the mountains of Colorado that I usually don’t see right now. Maybe they know it is going to be an early winter. The bears have been very active this year and the rainfall far above normal for where I am. If it gets cold and we keep getting this amount of precipation then we are going to be in for some serious snow.
Whenever we see wild ducks or geese, or a large flock of birds, my kids all yell out something to the effect of “Watch Out! Bird Fluuuuuuuu!” It helps to make a joke of it sometimes :) But, they know what’s going on and they’re not afraid. They say their mom’s got everything covered and they’re not worried—except they want all their best friends coming to quarantine WITH US when it happens! AND, they don’t go near wild ducks or birds or tromp thru noticeably well covered areas visited by our winged friends :)
tjclaw1 – at 21:00
About a week ago, the City of Toronto went on radio to ask its residents not to feed Canada Geese on the shores of Lake Ontario. The little bit of information given was that since one bird produces 2.2 lbs of poop a day, it would contribute a great deal of e.coli to lake water making it unsafe for drinking or swimming. I found that strenuous as best. We always have these birds, but never had this publicity. I don’t believe there will be so much Canada Geese poop to produce enough concentration of e.coli to cause a problem in a Great Lake like Ontario. In any case, Lake Ontario water has not been considered any safer than ground water, which also needs to be treated before drinking.
1. We still have Canada Geese in Toronto as of today (if this helps you).
2. I suspect the news was an attempt to keep people away from the birds without talking about bird flu.
Aug 18 - my first notice of a big flock of geese headed due south on the compass, in full V-formation, from Alaska.
Oh YYZ!!! Dont you remember a few years ago when Mayor Hurricane Hazel proposed sending all your Streetsville geese to Nova Scotia via Air Canada cargo!! Or proposed roasting and feeding them to poor people?? There has been LOTS of publicity about our geese and what a scourge they are on public property - feeding them only encourages them and they are quite mean and will bite you as soon as take the snack from your hand!! We have been warned LOTS of times, long before BF was on the radar, not to go near them!!
We live in western Colorado (Mesa County). My son and I went for a 25-mile bicycle ride today and I spent much of that time looking around at the orchards and the sky (beautiful mixture of white cumulous and some rain clouds (with virga) to the west and southwest. I did not see any migratory bird formations and specifically did not see any geese.
gharris – at 22:23
Well, Canada geese weren’t on my radar screen a few years ago, so thanks for letting me know that they had warned people before. Seems we have a love/hate relationship with that bird, I mean the goose :-) Mayor Hazel McCallion has done an outstanding job, although she must be very frustrated … where is the money to fight that mess?
Surprise, there could be a bigger mess lurking.
Do you know what happened to 3 birds not tested out of 8 birds recently found dead on the shores of Lake Ontario near Hamilton?
What killed birds? Botulism is best guess
The Hamilton Spectator (Jul 22, 2006)
“Dr. Doug Campbell, pathologist at the Canadian Co-operative Wildlife Health Centre at the University of Guelph, examined the carcasses of five Canada geese and three mallard ducks.
Tests on five of the birds ruled out pesticides, West Nile virus, avian influenza and other viruses.”
YYZ - Likely they were too degraded to test - but I cant rule out the possibility of the dog eating the homework again - I am not at all comforted by the level of professionalism we are seeing in Canada re testing.
YYZ - By the Way - it is not just the geese we need to think about - have you ever seen the gull population at the end of the Cherry St spit - or heard about the cormorant problem at Presqu’ile - all are disgusting and perfect breeding grounds for H5N1 to become friable and airborne! I am a bird lover but I think something drastic needs to be done about all 3 areas - regardless of BF!!!
gharris – at 23:08
Before the pandemic threat, birds never crossed my mind, so I am not familiar with those problems, but probably they won’t be cleaned up until someone answers “show me the money”, or until some one thinks that this is a public health or infectious disease problem … Too little too late is the likely outcome.
So even in a big city, right down town, you could have an environment similar to a third world country for H5N1 to brew. Scary thought.
What about land fill sites near the city e.g. Keele. I shudder at the thought that those city workers don’t know what risks they are faced with.
YYZ - the thought gets even scarier when you think abt the number of guys who are just starting to get out their gear to go duck hunting in all our wonderful wetlands - with their dogs - wading through possibly H5N1 infected water and grasses, coming home and cleaning those ducks on their kitchen counters or workbenches (giving the feathers to the kids to play with and the entrails to the dog!!) and the carcass to the wife to cook up for dinner (hope her oven works okay!) - or leave in the freezer (BF not killed by freezing!) for after the pandemic - the kids who played with the feathers can infect an entire classroom, including their teachers - Course we only have low path H5N1 in Ontario so far - but it can flip the ‘high path’ without warning but the time it is on the news, it will be much too late to warn the hunters! Or the ‘birders’ for that matter! We are no different from any third world country and have nothing about which to be smug!
gharris – at 23:50
I suspect hunting is such a big business that there will be political pressure to not talk about the bird flu or down play the risks, and I think this is a problem not only for Ontario.
I live in Northwest North Dakota 5 miles from the Canadian border. Plenty of wetlands here and always loaded with ducks and geese. Nothing unusual going on here. No early migrations (and we have migrating birds come through by the millions, spring and fall - it’s actually very NOISY day after day). As far as folks walking through the fields were birds poo with their dogs and etc., er, we live here, farming and ranching, always in the fields, surrounded by birds of every description, and that’s just the way it is and will continue to be until Novermber and snow cover.
I don’t believe we’re going to be infected by birds (or extremely rarely as has been happening for the last couple of years around the world) but it will be a strain of flu that is adapted to humans, different from what is infecting birds, that will endanger all of us. It’s those warm-blooded two-legged creatures that will getcha, birds having little, if anything to do with the pandemic strain. Humans and birds are different kinds of critters and it’ll be a different, mutated strain of bug that’ll get us.
Hunting season starts in September. My bet you are far more likely to break a leg in a prairie dog hole than catch bird flu from birds. All that talk of “the birds done it” is WHO/government BS, IMHO.
Back when I was a kid, my dad used to hunt. He raised Llewellyn setters, beautiful dogs. After they were done for the day, he would fill socks..with the feathers to keep the dogs comfortable with the scent. Don’t think he ever gave them other parts, in fact I don’t remember dad cleaning them at home at all.
oh, kinda off topic there..I have been looking for geese, we usually start getting them about now nd haven’t seen any yet. I thought that was kinda wierd.
Hunting on its own is not a ‘huge’ contributor to the economy of the province, but tourism certainly is - it is the tourism that our government will try to protect - oh and also our agricultural exports (poultry products, grains etc) Our government will be no different than Indonesia or any other with keeping mum about it - look what happened with SARS - the rest of the world thought Toronto was Typhoid Mary - travellers coming here only reluctantly and then with face masks etc - we didnt think there was much of a problem, except if you were in the habit of frequenting certain parts of the City. I think it never occured to most Torontonians that they could actually catch SARS! The early and forced ‘all clear’ resulted in the second wave of SARS which resulted in unnecessary deaths! Not a great track record!! The question is - what can WE do about it - you, me, TomDVM, CanadaSue and other Ontario preppers - to lean on our govt to get PROACTIVE!! BF is WAY lower on McGinty’s radar than it is on any US state’s! Appalling!! And up to us to change the mindset!!
gharris – at 00:28
You may wish to take this to Canadian Preppers II thread. I posted a few things there recently, not much response unfortunately.
The geese are returning here also,(Eastern Canada)crops are a month ahead,and three days ago while camping i saw many trees with their leaves turning,this says early winter for the east coast
The US has made it a little eaiser to get rid of those geese…what to think about this…http://tinyurl.com/erm3h
Canada geese exist in two types of populations. One type migrates every year, the other is endemic to an area. Is there a chance some folks are just seeing some of these relatively local flocks flying from place to place? They do this, that is travel between feeding areas, and resting areas and so forth. So far, nothing anyone has said on this thread is more than annecdotal. Not that annecdotes are not valuable, but with as many people reading this site as there likely are, its possible several people are noticing things that they may be interpreting through all of our fears of bad stuff happening.
Just my two cents from a science teacher’s perspective.
This reminds me of the grocery store prepping thread. Someone sees Wally world being out of rice one day, starts a thread, and everyone who has noticed a store being out of something, adds to the thread, and pretty soon we are all convinced there is a real trend, rather than just a bias in our “data collection.”
Southern NJ-Eastern flyway…
We have so many geese than are permanent residents I can’t tell anymore who’s migrating or just moving from feeding place to feeding place. FWIW, I have not seen large numbers of geese moving anywhere.
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