aderfp633
Inscrit le: 27 Sep 2011
Messages: 7915
Localisation: England
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 Posté le: Lun Sep 16, 2013 7:35 am Sujet du message: the bird protected the fallen fowl.“ |
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{Goose holds 6-day vigil for its mate}
OTTAWA-No wonder we call smitten couples love birds. Ed Champagne is convinced humans can learn a thing or two about devotion from our feathered friends.The 72-year-old Ottawa native and his wife, Marie,[url=http://www.toms-shoes-sale.com]Cheap Toms[/url], were at home in Killaloe,[url=http://www.toms-shoes-sale.com]Toms Shoes Outlet[/url], an hour’s drive southwest of Pembroke, on March 26. Overlooking the Bonnechere River from their large living room windows, “we saw two things out on the water and one wasn’t moving,” said Champagne, in an interview Monday.Out came the binoculars for a better look.He determined that a Canada goose had died on an ice floe,[url=http://www.toms-shoes-sale.com]Toms Shoes Sale[/url], and what he believes to be its mate was standing guard about a metre away.“As the days went by … we were very drawn to it. We thought it was very sad,” said Champagne. “It would go out in the water and then it would come back within five, 10 minutes and take up its vigil again.”Even when a vulture circled less than 10 feet above the dead bird, hungry for a feast, the bird protected the fallen fowl.“(It) leapt on top of the other, the corpse, and scared the (vulture) away with its antics,” he said. The vulture never returned.After six days of watching the scene from his deck 100 metres away, the spring thaw caused the ice holding the birds to break up and drift down the river, said Champagne.The experience has left the retired Royal Canadian Air Force member with a greater fondness for the geese he sees annually training their young to fly in his waterfront backyard.“There’s stuff there: loyalty and love and lessons to be learned probably,” he said. “There’s so much we don’t know about nature.”Mike Williams, a conservation specialist at the national non-profit wetland conservation group Ducks Unlimited, said geese normally mate for life. If one is injured, it’s conceivable the other would defend it from predators. He’s even heard hunters say they saw mates return to the spot where their partners were killed. But normally, the bird moves on and mates again.“I think it’s pretty remarkable the devotion that that one goose had toward its mate,” Williams said.
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