It’s Nesting Season for Canada Geese
Right now, resident Canada geese are settling in for their annual nesting season. They’ve selected their mates, built their nests, and are ready to lay some eggs…hopefully not on your property. Here’s the problem: once geese have ‘moved in’, it’s almost impossible to get them to leave. Imagine if someone came to your house in the middle of the night and tried to convince you to move out, leaving behind all of your comfort, security, resources…AND your children! Would that go over very well? Probably not. That’s pretty much how the geese feel when we try to get them to leave our property during their nesting season.
According to Dr. Phil “Dr. Goose” Whitford’s Calendar of the Goose, the 8—10 week period that follows is molting season (from June to August), when Canada geese gather on and around lakes and ponds to shed their old feathers, and re-grow new ones. Because they are unable to fly during this time, they can only be moved to areas they can reach on foot. New families and non-breeding geese alike move to these molting sites, doing serious damage to the landscape of the areas that they are temporarily inhabiting.
Not-So-Fun Fact: Each Canada goose defecates about 28 times per day!
Bird-X recommends goose-proofing your property before nesting season so that geese learn to take up residence elsewhere. If geese have already nested on your property this year, be prepared to move them in late May—after their eggs have hatched and when molting season is about to begin. Try combining the Bird-X GooseBuster® with some visual scare tactics. The GooseBuster is a sonic speaker system that creates an audio attack using recordings of actual Canada geese alarm, alert and distress calls. Developed using scientific research and field study, the GooseBuster is the most comprehensive goose repeller in the world.
Dr. Goose has a PhD in biological sciences, specializing in animal behavior. He also has BS and MS degrees in wildlife management. The findings from his extensive studies of the Canada goose have been presented in over 100 publications.
Written by Chrissy Hansen—Media Correspondent for Bird-X, Inc.
Canada goose, 3 eggs slows down production on a $150 mil. luxury building in the UK
A security guard has been assigned to protect this Canada goose and her two eggs in a U.K. building. This little goose has held up work on a $150 million luxury building.
A funny things happen to living creatures every once in a while: they reproduce. Unfortunately for a British construction company, a goose decided to exert her right to reproduce on their production site.
A recent Aol News piece shed some light on the situation, saying that the goose got comfortable. There is even a 24-hour security guard standing watch to make sure she’s safe and sound.
While production on the building isn’t completely stalled — the contractor explains that they are working on a different area until the goose leaves — it’s definitely a hassle. What if this happened to your company? Comfortable geese looking for a nice spot to raise a family just plop down and stay a while? This could cost millions and the liability factor could tack on more to that. Every seen a slip-and-fall incident resulting from a bird droppings? It’s quite expensive.
The GooseBuster is designed specifically for the humane elimination of pesky geese.
Putting up a few sound devices is the best thing to do for this kind of problem. The Goose Buster emits high quality digital playbacks of goose distress and alarm calls recorded in natural environments. Since the sounds are in the geese’s own language, they get the message: STAY AWAY!
Got questions about your specific goose problem? Check out www.bird-x.com for more products, or call us up at 800-860-0473!
Oregon park flooded with geese droppings
Tualatin, Ore. has decided to use swan decoys to control their growing geese issues. (source: www.tualatintimes.com)
A recent article in The Times, a Portland-area newspaper, talked about a goose problem at the Lake at the Commons in Tualatin, Oregon. According to Bob Martin, parks maintenance supervisor, the geese are producing “nearly five gallons of excrement a day, which mostly ends up on the pavement.”
The mess is problematic in various ways — smell, chemical, general sanitation, take your pick — so a parks staff person has to spend an hour a day cleaning it up. This costs quite a bit of money over time, Martin says, so the city has tried multiple methods of “goose abatement.”
They hit it right on the head – geese can become a pest, but dealing with their droppings is expensive and can be down-right dangerous. Slip-and-fall incidents are not uncommo, and that can lead to lawsuits. Not to mention that acidic droppings can erode multiple surfaces and are filled with transferable diseases.
Their solution was two plastic swans anchored at the bottom of the lake shown above. Swans and geese are natural enemies, so having decoy swans in the lake does make sense.
A good addition to the swans would be a predator decoy; something like a fox or coyote replica works well because both of them present a valid danger. If the geese get to close, they may turn into dinner! Bird-X carries predator decoys, like our 3D coyote and the fox replica. The 3D coyote is life-like and in attack mode, creating the illusion of danger to the geese.
The fox replica is a menacing 2D decoy that covers up to one acre, perfect for small lakes and community parks. Luckily, both of these bird control options are low maintenance — set it up once and you’re done. No clean up. No reapplying a product. And no hassle.
Get in contact with one of our experts to order one today!
Those frakkin’ geese!
Geese chilling at the train station pond
I take the train to work because of the traffic and the amount of money I save in gas and upkeep costs. Though I have to tell you that I’m really getting sick and tired of those frakkin’ geese! I’m at the station in the morning and there they are, busy flying overhead, crapping on the train platform just to protect their rights to the man-made pond nearby. And then I come home in the evening, trying to leave the parking area before I get stuck in a logjam of traffic and they are busy taking their own sweet time crossing the street. I swear, I often think about just plowing on through them, but they are protected by the government.
And that incessant honking! Can anything by any louder or more annoying than the geese communicating to each other? And what are they saying to one another? If only we could understand what they are saying, maybe their conversation would go something like this:
Goose #1: “Hey, I’m gonna take a big old dump right on the sidewalk. And then I’m going to honk at and chase the next human that walks by.”
Goose #2: “Oh yeah? Well, I’m going to go for a swim, defecate in the water, eat part of a fish and leave him in the pond. Then I’m going to fly over to that parking lot and I’m going to defecate some more right on that shiny red car.”
Goose #3: “You two are doing child’s play. I’m going to grab three friends and walk across that wide road all day long and stop traffic. And, while I’m in the middle of the road, I’m going to stop and clean myself.”
Geese 1 & 2: “Ooh. You win.”
And geese are smart. No matter what you do to stop them or get rid of them, they just ignore it…well, almost anything.
There’s this biologist in Ohio who’s like the Diane Fossey of geese. He’s been watching geese for over 25 years and is the foremost authority on goose behavior. He has been working with us here at Bird-X to develop products that will make geese leave – on their own – and take their friends with them. There’s this cool sound device called a GooseBuster that emits natural recordings of goose alarm and alert calls. Once the geese hear those soundas, they vamoose, knowing that trouble is afoot!
So I decided to do a little test. I asked my train mates about putting this sound device out there to see if it would scare away the geese – we’re subjected to the early morning honking and late afternoon jaywalking so why not try to get them to go elsewhere? They agreed and we set out to get rid of the geese. It took only three days! And now we hear faint honking and a distant corporate park when the wind is not in our favor. But the key here is that the geese are gone from our train stop. No more honking (from geese – cars are another issue). No more defecating on the train platform (someone actually slipped and fell in it once). And no more afternoon strolls across the street. Nada. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. They are gone – those frakkin’ geese are gone!