Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Teenaged Geese

Older Goslings

Hello, it’s me again, Ratty. You know, The Everyday Adventurer. Do you know what I have for you today? Well, I’m sure you’ve already figured out that it involves geese again. To my utter regret though, this will be the last time the geese will make an appearance this week.

But wait, you say, what is the post about? This one is the grand finale of Goose Week. It’s about the older family of geese, and it’s something most other people never talk about. It’s not something bad or disgusting. It’s about growing up. These goslings are turning into actual full fledged geese.

Most little goslings are a pale yellow in color. If you look at my pictures here, you can see that these teenaged geese are beginning to change. Their colors are starting to resemble the colors of the adults. They’ll soon leave the nest and decide to go out into the wide world.

Older Goslings

You all know how cute little baby birds look? You know, all fuzzy and yellow. Well these aren’t babies, they’re teenaged goslings. These birds, like most teenagers, are temporarily awkward and ugly. Just look at them in the picture above. They look more like plucked chickens than geese.

Their beaks have turned black. Their bodies are darkening to the brown color of other geese. They have all begun to grow their white chinstraps. Even their necks are turning black. They are beginning to look just like the adults. Pretty soon they’ll all fly for the very first time.

Okay, enough of the joke. I just wanted to show you that these geese are right in the middle of turning into adults. Most people like showing babies, but not many remember to show you this stage of development. I remembered. Next time we all see them, we might not be able to tell the difference between them and other adult geese.

That’s it.

16 comments:

  1. I'm glad you include this stage of the geese in your post! I can see changes taking place with their necks and beaks.

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  2. I am no longer a teenager but I sometimes feel like a goose. What does it mean? Thanks for the post

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  3. Thanks for sharing - I have a flock of geese that live on the pond near where I live - they are fun to watch. One evening, it was like school children - they were all in a single file line, walking down the side of the road, heading to an opening where they could enter the pond.

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  4. It's quite hard to capture their teen moment since they growing up much faster than human.
    Nice shot Ratty :)

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  5. I wonder if they have the attitudes that human teenagers have from time to time.

    Cute post!

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  6. You will soon find them acting like an adult, they start to date.....

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  7. i am also happy that you shared this stage of the little ones. they do grow up so fast...hehehe

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  8. Very Informative !! Nice Post !!Look Forward For Some More !!Also I Have Started My Own Website And Would Like You To Have A Look At It.I Would Love To Have Your Comments On That Also.Unseen Rajasthan

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  9. So are teenaged geese all punky and smart-mouthed too??

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  10. I know you knew they were teenagers because the one on the right was asking his dad for the keys to the car and the one on the left was arguing with their mom about their curfew times....you can't fool me with all these observations about their feather colors changing.....

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  11. Oh yeah the adult ones can grow so huge! I remember seeing one when I was a kid and I got totally afraid of it my cousin was shooing it off but instead ran after us! LOL

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  12. Icy BC - They look like they're caught right in the middle of being babies and grown up geese. It's pretty strange looking.
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    Joe Todd - I'm not sure what it means. I'll have to take your picture to find out. I like pictures of geese. :)
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    Mike - I like when geese do that. Geese form better lines than school children though.
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    Vanilla - I never expected to see them at this stage of their lives. I never really even thought about it until I saw them. I'm happy I did.
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    KML - I'm not sure but a few of them were getting kind of rowdy. :)
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    Rainfield - When that happens, they're going to need a curfew.
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    PJ - I wonder if their parents will develop empty nest syndrome.
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    Unseen Rajasthan - I'm mostly a fan of blogs. Your blog looks nice.
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    Lin - I think that's when they start. Geese never seem to get over that.
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    The Retired One - Well, the one in the middle was throwing a great big tantrum. Those middle children are always the trouble makers.

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  13. it is definitely great to see and observe the changes and transition in growing geese, when I first saw baby gulls before, my first question was " so how does the teen gull look like?" since the baby and the mom looked entirely different.

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  14. This has bee so much fun to watch them grow and change, thank you Ratty for this experience.
    SQ

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  15. You have to wonder what the geese think about those "babies." "hope they leave soon?" "too loud?" "really hard to find good places to eat... Jr took the best snails at that last spot?"

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  16. Daisy - It was probably looking for a snack. It's best to run away from them. Geese can be dangerous sometimes.
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    Betchai - Yeah, this is the stage of life that I think most people don't see. They like the babies, but never give this much thought. It takes extra thinking to remember about these teenagers.
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    SquirrelQueen - If I can think of an interesting story for it, I'll show some even better pictures of these geese.
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    Sharkbytes - Those are probably good guesses. Maybe it's very similar thoughts as human parents.

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