Resightings of Greenland collared Canada Geese demonstrate the importance of staging in Nova Scotia
NB: Nova Scotia birder Natalie Barkhouse-Bishop reported four collared Canada Geese on the North River in Truro on October 9, and another four at Tidal Bore Road in Truro on October 30, 2022. They were identified within five days as originating from a catch of 104 adult Canada Geese collared in Isunngua, west Greenland in July 2022 under a project coordinated by our guest, Dr. Tony Fox, Professor of Waterbird Ecology at Aarhus University in Denmark.
From far away in Europe, we first became interested in Greenland-breeding Canada Geese due to their potential adverse competitive effects on the endemic Greenland White-fronted Goose Anser albifrons flavirostris that breed in the same area of west Greenland and winter in Ireland and Britain, numbers of which have declined rapidly since the late 1990s. Canada Geese Branta canadensis nest throughout continental North America, but Interior Canada Geese B. c. interior have been increasing as a summer visitor and breeding species in Greenland since the 1980s (despite breeding there since at least 1863). We began marking Canada Geese in Greenland with yellow neck-collars in the 1990s to learn more about them there. Our subsequent research shows reduced breeding success has caused declines in Greenland White-fronted Geese, due to climate change more than to interactions with the North American wintering Canada Geese. Nevertheless, thanks to the sterling efforts of an enthusiastic army of birders and hunters reporting birds marked with our yellow neck-collars, we now know a great deal more about the migration phenology, staging and wintering distribution of Canada Geese breeding in Greenland. For example, we know these geese leave their summer haunts in mid to late September, make first landfall in Labrador and Newfoundland and migrate rapidly south to stage in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and northeast Maine. Resightings and recoveries from Connecticut in September suggest many geese skip these northern staging areas altogether, travelling directly to be nearer to their ultimate wintering sites. Depending on weather and harvest conditions, some geese remain in northeast Maine and Nova Scotia into December, while the majority continue down into Massachusetts, Connecticut and especially Long Island in New York, the main wintering area for marked individuals, remaining there during December–February inclusive. Travelling northwards again in March, we have very few spring reports of birds in Maine or Nova Scotia from areas used in autumn, because the geese seem to stage more south of the St. Lawrence Seaway region on their way north. Based on collar resightings, we lose track of where the geese are after the first few days of May.
This talk will report “stop press” news from the results from GPS tags fitted in summer 2022, provide new information and reveal more secrets about these remarkable Arctic travellers.
Bio: Tony Fox is Professor of Waterbird Ecology at Aarhus University in Jutland, Denmark and Visiting Professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. Originally from Britain, he has lived in Denmark for almost 30 years, where his work is centred on advising government and the private sector on the effects of anthropogenic activity (such as hunting and recreational disturbance) and development pressures (such as major bridge and offshore windfarm construction) especially on migratory waterbirds.
Professor Fox has studied Greenland White-fronted Geese since his undergraduate days in the late 1970s, and since 1992, with many others, the Greenland nesting Canada Geese that breed in the same area as the White-fronts. He has studied geese in Arctic Canada during five summers and many waterbird species in Far East Asia. He is married with two daughters both of whom live in Copenhagen.
