Saturday in the park with geese

[selenak]

What's the English word for "child of wild goose" - "goosling"? Anyway, there are currently a lot of them in the Munich city park, aka The Englischer Garten, and they're adorable. Their parents aren't bad, either. Hence, gratitious pic spam.





Always with their parents, of course.








But they do make some excursions.







And learn swimming:




Meanwhile, another bunch stays on land:















Until they're pushed into the water:





At one point, a loose dog went too close to a family, and this resulted in some very mad geese, hissing like you wouldn't believe:



And telling their kids to go into the water:





I mean, that's just not on, dog!





The gooslings think so too:

Comments

[kaffy_r]

Oh my goodness, what little balls of fluff! I always enjoy your photos, and these made me smile. Do you know what type of geese these are? In my neck of the woods we have many, many geese who have acclimated themselves to year-round city living, almost to the point of overpopulation, but they are 99.9 percent Canada Geese; big and beautiful, and a little intimidating, even when they're not hissing. (And you were almost right on the name for baby geese. One baby goose is a gosling, and the plural is goslings.)

[selenak]

No, sadly I don't know the type of geese. But they are around in the Englischer Garten for the whole year, too, as opposed to the swans, who come and go with the seasons.

[kaffy_r]

Yes, I think geese can be eminently practical like that: "Why should I do all that travelling, when the humans have created such a lovely environment for me?"

[ratcreature]

They look like Graugänse to me, which wikipedia tells me are Greylag Geese in English (afaik they are also the most common in the Old World geese and the ancestors of the domestic). Here in Northern Germany you can also see Canada Geese, which established itself as introduced species living here year round. Those have black necks.

[yvi]

Should be Graugänse. Trust me, I'm a Biologist who spent one entire afternoon identifying birds ;-)