Ramble with Storm: Gosling guess

Mulling things on my morning ramble

with Storm, the family’s mixed Lab.

There’s only one gosling on the town pond.

And I’m beginning to worry that is it for the year.

Some years there’s up to a dozen and a half or so goslings from the seven or so pairs of Canada geese nesting around the town pond.

It looks like the only gosling that has survived is from the pair that nests on the island.

Now I wonder if predation has gotten so bad that none of the pairs nesting along the shoreline had eggs or goslings survive.

That’s the only thing I can come up with.

As far as I can tell, weather should not have been an issue. It was about the warmest April on record. And compared to the past several springs, it was much drier than usual.

So I am guessing the problem is predation. I know we have lots of coyotes around the town pond and some raccoons and opossums. I have never seen an otter or sign of one around the town pond. And I don’t know if otters would tangle with geese or not.

Maybe next week, I will contact Ray Marshalla, and see if the state waterfowl biologist has noticed anything about goslings this spring.

It’s always dangerous to extrapolate from the local experience to a general pronouncement.