The Canada Goose

by john mcewen illustrated by carry akroyd

The Canada goose (Branta canadensis) is the largest of our geese. Ganders weigh up to 14lb. They’re also the most sedentary – and therefore domesticated – of our geese.

They were first introduced from north America in the 17th century, when Canada was not yet designated. They were imported as an exotic addition to Charles II’s new lake for ornamental water birds in St James’s Park. The 18th century saw them decorate the landscaped lakes of country seats, and the 19th century the parks of industrialised cities.

It was only in the 20th century that a long-established feral population earned this goose the status of a British bird. By 1953, the most generous estimate was 3,600, since when numbers have burgeoned. In the 1960s, birds were collected during the flightless summer moult and widely distributed. By 2013, the population had spread to include the entire British Isles, the majority in England and Wales. Numbers breeding (up to eight eggs per clutch) had risen by 73 per cent since 1995.

Today, the UK has 54,000 breeding pairs – juveniles and continental migrants increasing the total winter population to 160,000.

The native bird is the most popular with hunters in Canada and the USA. Some say it is ‘yummy’ to eat. Others welcome its control as a pest. Its grazing of grass and arable crops is the equivalent of a sheep, and every 40 seconds (28 ounces per day) it fouls the ground with droppings immune to over 100 antibiotics.

Since municipal parks are a favoured habitat, this makes Canada geese a more noticeable public nuisance than other birds. In flight, they have caused one fatal airliner crash in Canada and the sensational safe landing of a US Airways plane on the Hudson River off midtown Manhattan in 2009.

This century, they have been removed from the UK protected list. They can be shot or have their eggs dispatched, but only by the owners of land where they are deemed intolerable. In 2008, the cookery writer and entrepreneur Prue Leith caused a furore by telling an interviewer she had made an omelette with eggs from her resident Canada geese. Robert Hardman, the royal biographer, came to her defence with a newspaper article headlined ‘The most loathsome bird in Britain’.

Canadas are imposingly large – but are the brownest, plainest of geese and no match for our migratory species, especially the smaller silver-and-black barnacle, which also has a black-and- white head and black neck. Their honking cry is tuneless, but for me all is forgiven because they amused my wife in her last years.

At Hampstead Heath’s sanctuary pond, there was the well-known Eddie, flightless owing to a genetic deformity called angel wing. My wife pitied him for the relentless bullying he endured from the pond’s mute swan cob. Her ‘Goosey!’ call would bring Eddie from the furthest reaches.

In Regent’s Park, the resident gaggle would pursue her regardless of reward, nipping where they could. And at Kenwood in springtime, leggy goslings would hurry from parental safety to greet her.