The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group, a place where everyone is welcome to note the observations you have made of the natural world around you. Insects, weather, fish, climate, birds and/or plants: all are worthy additions to the bucket. Ask questions if you have them and someone here may well have an answer. All we ask is that you let us know where you're located, as close as you're comfortable revealing.
Seattle. April 25, 2013.
On March 26 I found the first pair of this year's Canada Geese setting up housekeeping down at the Marina, very close to the place where a pair had nested in 2011 and 2012. Five days later Mama Goose looked as if she was settled in for the duration.
April 1, 2013. Nesting Canada Goose. Female at left.
For fun, when I first wrote about the nest I added a hatching date poll based on the average incubation time of 28 days and the first date that the nesting pair was present:
14 people voted, and two may have guessed correctly.
Mama Goose and her companion were still there on Monday, sharing their space with a Great Blue Heron and a Common Merganser. The regular Crow contingent made their usual ruckus just out of photo range.
April 22, 2013. Mama Goose (far right) and friends.
I didn't check the nest on Tuesday. On Wednesday, April 24, the gravel bank was empty of birds. No Mergansers, no Herons, no Crows, no Canada Geese, no Canada Goose goslings.
Today I walked south from the parking lot where our street stops just above the Marina, under the cottonwood grove that shades the gravel nesting bank in the evening, and on past the willows that line the shoreline where the turtles sun themselves on floating logs. Searched the Marina island, and peered under the pier that connects the island to the boulevard. Continued, checking the spaces between the moored boats and their connecting docks, then paying attention to the widening gravel of the beach.
There were no Canada Geese. No adults. No goslings.
I stepped down onto the beach from a concrete abutment where the signs tell you not to feed the waterfowl. Crunched over gravel that was laid down years ago to provide places for Salmon to spawn. Looked back up the way I'd come and down along where Big-leaf Maples shade a grassy arc of curving shoreline, the place where Daughter bwren and I came to read and swim on hot summer days when she was a little girl.
And searched through my binocs across the lake and along the shore to the southernmost point that can be construed as being part of the Marina.
There were no Canada Geese. Anywhere.
None.
It is quite possible that a new family of Canada Geese is hiding, or has moved south or north to places beyond where I was willing to walk today. It could be that the nest has failed.
I will continue my search tomorrow.
April 25, 2013. This year's Canada Goose nest has been abandoned. I don't know if the goslings have hatched and the family has moved on, if they are in hiding, or if the nest has failed.
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I'll be in for a while after about noon today, then again for a bit around dinner time, but will be away for the evening. Everyone is welcome to add their observations to today's Bucket. I'll check back on Saturday for late posts and will perhaps have an update.