Gosling day care - while the parents were away enjoying a spa day.

Bottom:  A group of 19 goslings cared for by 3 adults. Center:  Before their swim,
the goslings were resting in the shade of a tree.  Top right:  The rest of the parents
were on the other side of the Leduc Reservoir preening and enjoying a quiet moment.

It turns out that humans aren't the only ones that drop their kids off at day care and spend the day doing something else.  

Called a crèche or nursery group, this communal behaviour frees members of a community to get to the business of survival, which in this case seems to be preening.  With humans, it usually means going off to work, but the idea is the same.  Survival comes in all forms.

The wild is much less hospitable.  The geese living in human communities rarely have to worry about predation, have plenty of food, and are near various forms of shelter should the worst come.  In the wild, they have to forage for food, avoid predators or gang up against them, or find/make shelter.  Sharing the task of raising young allows the distribution of tasks and improves survivability for all.

However, given that the geese are living comfortably among humans, the nursery group allows the parents to be free from supervising to engage in more enjoyable activities.  I suspect, over the course of time as they develop their leisure wherewithal, that we'll see geese playing games (duck, duck, goose), learning to dance (goose step), and developing social drinking (grey goose vodka).  

This is just the beginning - mark my words - the times, they are a'changing.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com

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