I'd Like To Talk To You About GEESE(S)

At my graduation the vice principal boasted with the fact that our university had the highest ratio of ducks to students. What he failed to mention was that this probably also goes for the ratio of geese to citizens.

My favourite subject for photos is animals, and since there's no affordable zoo anywhere near here I have to make do with what I get. As a consequence I get lots of pictures of poultry in motion...

A quick search of the internet revealed a few interesting facts about our co-inhabitants. The first point to come up and to make me knowingly grin and nod was

• They can produce a LOT of poop. Just 50 geese can generate more than 2 tons of manure in one year!
  
  

No arguments from me. Most of the facts about geese are probably well known by everyone:

• They mate for life
• They fly up to 3000 miles to return to their place of birth for breeding
• Males will be very protective of their females if they feel threatened:

• They fly in V-formation in order to save energy and thus cover more distance

Something that I insist on telling you because I'm a linguist and I feel responsible for the preservation of words:

• Males are called gander (Ganter, Ganterich, Gänterich or Ganser in German)
• Females are called goose (Gans in German)
• Their babies are called goslings (Gänsel or Gössel in German)
• The collective name for a group is gaggle. When geese fly in formation they are called a wedge or a skein. (There just seems to be no adequate equivalent in German...)

Moreover, I found out that they eat snow to stay hydrated:

They also walk in V-formation, but arguably this is the wrong way round:

And they don't care about being saved by human devices:

Also, for your amusement, here's a few more geese pictures that I took today:

Apart from all that, these are really clever animals. I have seen them cross a street via a pedestrian refuge island and correctly assessing the risks of traffic - now we just have to teach them how to use a toilet.