Long Island is experiencing more Canada goose problems this year than ever before. Admittedly, the last few weeks of winter always see the most geese as big flocks passing north use Long Island as a rest stop. They join the many thousands of birds that either winter here or that live year-round in the New York metro area.

Last week, we received numerous cries for help. Two calls came within an hour of each other from desperate householders. Over one hundred geese had turned up out of the blue a week before to foul their properties. One of the callers hadn't seen a goose on her property in seventeen years. We also received calls from another two Long Island-based organizations wanting urgent solutions to their geese problems. See http://geeseoff.com/new-york/westchester/goose-control.php. The deals were concluded within a few hours resulting in two more new customers for GEESE OFF!

Across the island people are reporting many more geese than usual – more flocks, larger flocks. GEESE OFF! is still fighting a sizable migrant flock of some 300 geese in Mill Neck on the north shore of Long Island. These birds come from northern Quebec. They spend every winter in and around Lattingtown, Mill Neck Bay, Oyster Bay and Centre Island.

Collared geese

How do we know where they're from? Simple – for the last six years we've been seeing some of this flock wearing peach-colored neck collars with large white numbers on them. We jot down the numbers and dial them into a special phone line for the US Fish & Wildlife Services department that deals with migratory bird counts. A few weeks later, we receive a certificate telling us where the geese were banded. The certificate gives the birds' sex, their age and the name of the wildlife biologist responsible for the banding. The man who bands the Mill Neck geese is a Québécois. He captures and collars the birds up in the tundra during the summer molt when they cannot fly. All in all, we see about fifty geese with his collars.

Exodus

But why have these Long Island geese been so numerous and so persistent over the last two weeks? As mentioned in our previous blog, http://geeseoff.com/geesecontrolblog/border-collies/goose-control-in-new-york-snowstorms-feb-27-2010/, the geese on Long Island lost a lot of valuable feeding time during the snow storms that blanketed the island in February. They're battling to rebuild their body fat in preparation for their long migrations. Meanwhile, female resident geese are also restocking their larders in order to have enough in store for the 28 days they will spend incubating their eggs in April. They will eat little when they sit on the nest.

Spring relief

March 21, the first day of spring, will dawn a different day. Year after year, we've seen dramatic declines in the number of geese on Long Island around that date. Up in Westchester and Putnam Counties, we already noted flocks of twenty to fifty geese flying high on the back of last week's southerly breezes before the weekend rain storms grounded the flights. More birds will soon follow. At the same time, many nesting resident geese have already returned to their home ponds to begin the nesting process.