Canada Geese and Tree Nests

Canada geese are one of the early nesters in North Dakota. In April, they will select nest sites on islands, the edges of wetlands, and occasionally in trees.

The pair in this photo has chosen an unoccupied bald eagle nest, about 40 feet up in the tree. How do the newly hatched goslings get down from the nest? Climb down? Do the adults carry them in their bill?

It takes very lucky timing to witness the spectacle, but some biologists have described the event when goslings leave the nest. In the mid-1950s on the Flathead Valley of Montana, biologists monitored 77 tree and cliff nests where Canada geese were nesting. Some of these sites were up to 200 feet off the ground.

After all goslings had hatched, the adult geese would fly off the nest to the ground or water and start calling persistently to the goslings. One by one, the goslings would jump off the nest, beat their tiny wings on the descent, and plummet to the ground. Goslings are hardy and while some may lay stunned for a brief moment after crash landing, only one gosling out of those 77 nests was found impaled on a branch.