Yes Paul they do, and it's usually to nest.

Hmm.. Could be, but there are really no place to nest in the surrounding yard. It's just wide-open space.

Paul

Quote;"Yes Paul they do, and it's usually to nest."

Actually that is not correct. In fact, most of what people believe about the behavior of wild geese is incorrect.

Originally the Wild Canadian Geese wintered on the Gulf Coast and migrated to central Canada for their summer breeding grounds, but due to excessive hunting pressure by the early 1940's Canadian Geese were considered endangered. Most of the states on the migratory fly routes established very strict hunting rules and daily bag limits in an effort to maintain the species. In addition, many hunting and conservation groups started a hatch and release program in an effort to boost the goose population. While the hatch and release programs worked very well, they had one major problem, the geese were released in the local areas where they were hatched. This meant these geese had been raised by people so they did not have the natural fear of man that is instinctive to the true wild geese, and these geese had little to no social contact with the true Wild Canadian Geese which were only present during the migration, thus the geese from the hatch and release programs tend to remain in the same area summer & winter.

Geese are vegetarians and while they do eat some aquatic plants in the marshes, they much prefer to eat young tender grass in the open meadows, however, due to their physical size they cannot just jump up and fly like other birds, but rather they must run into the wind, flapping their wings until they get up enough airspeed to actually fly in the same way that an airplane must run down a runway. When the grass is less than 6 to 8 inches high they can run fine, but as the grass gets taller they cannot run through the grass fast enough to fly, so they prefer to feed on the banks of streams or ponds where they can quickly get to the water to have an open runway to take off.

They prefer to nest on the edge of a pond in the wetlands where their nest is concealed by the reeds or cattails and it is difficult for land mammals to reach the nest through the marshy terrain and the nest is generally very close to open water so they have a good flight path for takeoffs and landings.

The major problem with the geese that have evolved from the hatch and release program is that they lack the natural fear of man that is evident in the descendants of the true wild geese. As was described in the original post, in many areas these birds have become a nuisance because they feed on lawns, golf courses and those large tracts of grass found around shopping center parking lots. (The geese love the open parking lot as a runway).

When i was a kid on the farm we had a large flock of geese which was a mixture of domestic geese and some that my grandfather had gotten from Eastern Ohio Conservation Club hatch & release program. I can tell you first hand that you will find it extremely difficult to persuade those geese to leave once they have decided they like the territory. and unless you have a very large dog, I would not suggest letting the dog out to chase the geese. When threatened geese will generally group tightly together in the flock and begin moving away slowly, but if they are crowded too much they will definitely stand their ground. They will begin by assuming a defensive posture where they hold their head and neck stretched straight out in front of them, honking and hissing. If the offender does not heed the warning they will quickly run forward, grab the offender in their beaks and begin flapping their wings terribly. Take it from experience, when a goose hits you with the hard bony leading edge part of their wing it feels like you were hit with a ball bat. I have seen grown men, 80lb coon hounds and dobbermen pincers run for cover. In fact, to this day I have some scars on my legs from a goose.

Ah, that explains why they like lawns so much, since they can use it as a run way. If I install more tall plants at the edge of the yard, it may deter them. I recall the Canoe club in my old resident used to put up some sort low barrier on their deck. The guy explain that geese won't go there because it blocks their take off.

Can a coyote take out a geese? I notice one runs through my yard regularly, but I haven't seen a case where both the Coyote and the geese are in the yard at the same time.

Paul

I can second that; I've raised them before and I can tell you that even hand-raised geese are NOT to be trifled with. That said, they do make a mess, so maybe something less dangerous can be done to discourage them.

Around here, they've started a hunting season for Giant Canada Geese, which although it makes them more wary of humans, they still love to be near them any chance they get. Because they were captive-hatched they see humans as their source. So sad. Even the House Finches (which are native to the west but were sold as cage birds in the east) are that way-hanging around feeders and insisting on nesting almost on people's houses.

Paul, I assumed you were refering to Mallard Ducks because here in California the Ducks usually leave the busy areas and head for the quiet spots away from the group to nest, lots of times in peoples gardens near the pools.

We used to live on a lake with lots of mallards and Canada Geese. The mallards in particular used to wander the neighborhood during mating season (as did the neighbor's peacock). They were often in groups of three and would try to crowd into my tiny garden pond. Once I found them going at it in my garage. Sometimes they'd fight. They get as crazy as teenagers in spring!

As with Giant Canada Geese, the problem with Mallards is their association with people-most are hybrids of domesticated mallard breeds bought for children at Easter and released on local ponds when grown. Few pure wild Mallards are left in the entire world because of their willingness to interbreed with other species, including domestic breeds, most of which descend from Mallards.

The Mallard Duck can interbreed with 63 other wild species and is causing such gene pollution that many wild species are going extinct, are Mallards now considered an invasive species in New Zealand and becoming so other countries as they increasingly urbanize and hybridize. The ducks you call Mallards are not any more "wild" than House Sparrows, and probably more destructive to native species than the latter.

See the "Ecology and Conservation" heading 1/2 way down the page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallard

When I was a kid on the farm one of my primary chores was to keep an eye on the geese. Geese are strictly vegetarians and if they get into a field of sprouting corn the flock will spread out in a line, each goose taking a separate row and they move across the field with the efficiency of a modern harvesting machine plucking the young corn stalks, while totally ignoring the weeds, grass or insects. A flock of 20 geese can strip an acre of corn an hour so you can easily see why we had to continually keep an eye on them to insure they didn't get in the cornfields. When they did get in the cornfield we would move up to about 40 ft from the flock and shout and wave our arms. The geese would immediately gather into a tight group and begin to slowly walk away as a group, holding their heads high and proud, while honking furiously. We could then continue walking towards them and driving them away, providing we were careful to maintain a respectable distance of about 20 to 30ft. If we were to move in too fast, they would stop and go into their defensive posture. The key to driving geese is to be patient and move at their pace.

After having sat here recounting my youth for a couple days it came to me that there is one simple way to dissuade the geese. Geese can be contained by a simple low fence about 12" to 18" high. Even that inexpensive decorative white plastic picket fence found in your local garden shop is sufficient to keep geese out.

On the other hand we loved to see the ducks in the cornfield because even though ducks do eat grass, they much prefer insects, and for reasons known only to the ducks, they don't eat corn stalks so when the ducks got in the cornfield they would also fan out on a line, each taking a row, but they were inspecting each plant for insects.

Now getting back to the original question, how to dissuade the geese.