Watch A Flock of Canada Geese With 52 Goslings Cross The Street 

These geese do the honking. 😀

Yes, here we call it a gang brood or a creche. In the flock I watch, there are no shifts. There are 3 adult pairs who always have the goslings for the whole flock; round the clock for a month. They aggressively keep the rest of the parents away, even at night. It is as much a kidnapping as it is a cooperative thing.

@@mikesvideosofbeavers This is very interesting! And with the terminology you've explained, I can see some literature on this topic. Do you know if the “chaperon” geese are the parents of part of the goslings or not? Also, I saw that those “chaperon” geese keep the gosling group clearly separated and aggressively attack other birds if they approach, but I never knew that the attacked approaching birds are the parents. How can it even be determined? (Recognition of individual birds is quite difficult. I do have some experience: one day, I found a nest with a female of eggs and a male guarding the spot. We visited the nest with our family from time to time. When the goslings hatched, the birds apparently recognized us, despite the presence of many other people and Canada geese around, but for me to confirm that the parents were the same birds, it took considerable time comparing the photographs “before” and “after”.) Also, I find the notion of “kidnapping” quite weird. I always thought this crèche behavior is a winning strategy. And, after all, the biological parents make a lot more force than the “chaperon” geese...

@@Micro-Moo I can only speculate based on what I have observed. For sure the chaperone geese are parents to some of the goslings. Whether the geese they chase away are parents of some of them or not, I don't know, because as you say I can't ID any of them. But I suspect some of them are parents. At dusk I see geese trying to sneak in and get some of the goslings to sleep under them, but they get chased away. Seems like something a mother would do. One theory I read is that the dominant geese in the flock try to gather all the goslings for selfish reasons. If they form a gang brood, usually their own goslings will stay closer to them, and then there are a lot of goslings that aren't theirs on the perimeter, so that if a predator manages to get a gosling, it increases the odds for the dominant geese that their own goslings survive. Of course, that is just a theory. People can only watch and try to make inferences. The motivation and behaviour may all vary from flock to flock.

@@mikesvideosofbeavers Thank you for your answers. Even though the presence of parents among the chaperones is not 100% obvious, it seems natural. I also speculated based on my observation. I can indirectly confirm that behavior may vary from flock to flock because I found that the behaviors I observe can be very different. (I think what you call a “flock” is what I call a “social organism”. I try to make this distinction because there can be more than one social organism at the same spot (area at a river or a lake) populated by a much greater number of birds, which may look like a single flock at first glance.) After you've explained the domination factor, I can see how it may make some sense. Overall, I still tend to think that crèche behavior improves long-term survival through inclusive fitness of the entire set of goslings in a crèche, so it could be evolutionary progressive.

Canadian, Canadian Geese, are special. I have seen this behaviour several times in cities as widely separated as Nanaimo , Kelowna , Edmonton, Winnipeg, etc, my +60 years of life. We have climate. The geese have behaviour that helps them to survive in the Canadian environment And in Canada, as a Canadian symbol, they are unlikely to be mown down by irate drivers ... another aspect of the Canadian environment that helps Canadian Geese survive and thrive in our cities and climate.

They cannot be parents. I call this behavior “kindergarten”. The “chaperon” geese can be parents of a few of the goslings, but not all of them. Please see my big comment on the top level of comments. By the way, adult birds never leave anyone behind. They keep extremely close attention to the goslings they take care of, and they always remember who is who, and never mix up their goslings with other goslings.

Yes it is