Sunday 22 April 2012: Egyptian geese: both parents & some goslings!

I went back to the pond to see the Egyptian geese this afternoon; all 9 goslings are still alive and well, and they've grown so much. Still absurdly adorable.
There was a lot of bustle at Eagle Pond today: mallards, Canadian geese, coots, moorhens...

Interesting behaviour today: when the Egyptian geese went into the water (all together as a family), they set out towards the middle of the pond together (where there is an island with good plant cover). The male then struck out ahead, and proceeded into the cover of the island at speed; there was then all sorts of hubbub, and a bunch of mallards emerged quickly from the other side of the island and made to escape, but the male goose followed one of the drakes into the air and chased it off before performing a dramatic and graceful high speed loop around the pond, and then landed on the water to rejoin his family. It was like something out of an airshow... He definitely didn't want his family sharing the island with anyone else!
The geese actually didn't head to the island after all that, but it was a dramatic spectacle nevertheless.

I took quite a few photos that I liked today, but am blipping this one because it shows both parents (unlike previous blips) and a representative sample of their goslings. All 9 are around, but 3 are behind the father (partially visible), and one was lagging slightly...

• NIKON D200:
• f/8:
• 1/250":
• 200.0mm:
• ISO 100

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