Blue Geese
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PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS:
Blue geese, also known as Chinese geese, are thought to have been domesticated in China some three thousand years ago. These geese are always readily identified by the frontal knob at the base of the bill.
Geese are closely related to Swans, but differ by having the neck shorter than the body, and the lores (the space between the eye and bill) feathered. They differ from ducks by having the tarsus (legs) covered with small, hexagonal scales, and in the similarity in color of the sexes.
They also lack the cere (the soft swollen surface at the base of the upper bill) which is characteristic of ducks. Geese walk more readily than ducks because their legs are set further forward on their bodies.
DISTRIBUTION and HABITAT
Wild birds inhabit the central belt in Asia from the middle reaches of the Ob River to Kamchatka and winter in China and Japan.
BEHAVIOR:
All geese are highly territorial, especially at breeding time, and may suddenly attack invaders with utter fearlessness.
Geese are strong flyers and are essentially gregarious, usually occurring in large to exceptionally large flocks. They travel in big, noisy flocks, often high in the air and usually in long lines or "V" formations, called skeins. They travel both by day and by night, and at night only their trumpeting, honking, or cackling calls tell of their passing.
DIET:
Their food is almost wholly vegetable. In the water they take seeds and roots of aquatic plants. On land they feed on sprouting grain in spring, and on corn, oats, wheat, and barley, in the fall.
REPRODUCTION and GROWTH:
When geese arrive on their breeding grounds, the flocks break up and each pair selects a nesting site. The guarded area around each nest is small, so that a favorable habitat may contain many nests which form loose colonies.
The nests are crudely lined hollows, usually among vegetation, and there the female lays a clutch of 3-8 eggs. The male does not help her incubate the eggs, but stands guard. When the young hatch, after from 24 to 30 days of incubation, both parents accompany them to water and share in their care.
The chicks must change from downy balls to fully fledged, strong flying birds before the snows come in early autumn. Time is short for such large birds to rear young. Geese cannot afford to migrate or winter on nine-tenths power and so the adults moult while the youngsters are still growing their first flight feathers. Thus the entire population of geese are flightless for a couple of weeks or so at the end of the breeding season. To escape predators they keep to lakes, rivers and tundra pools.
Geese ordinarily pair for periods of years, if not for life, and their lives may be long, individuals nearly fifty years old having been reported.
