{"id":4187,"date":"2017-07-20T13:43:39","date_gmt":"2017-07-20T17:43:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/schools.wrdsb.ca\/environmental-education\/?p=4187"},"modified":"2017-07-20T13:46:41","modified_gmt":"2017-07-20T17:46:41","slug":"wild-goose-chase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/schools.wrdsb.ca\/environmental-education\/2017\/07\/20\/wild-goose-chase\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild Goose Chase"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Yesterday evening, after a relaxing dinner on the back patio, I gave chase to a wild goose.\u00a0 Here is how it happened.<\/p>\n

We live near Laurel Creek (the creek not the Nature Centre) and we we have a couple of parks near our house.\u00a0 Since the spring there have been at least 4 adult geese raising around 19 baby geese.\u00a0 The young geese now have their adult plumage but are still a bit smaller than their parents.\u00a0 We often see the mob of them grazing on the lawn or waddling lazily across bike paths.<\/p>\n

Yesterday at dinner they turned up again and we noticed one of the geese appeared to have an injury on it’s right wing.\u00a0 The wing was partially extended and nearly dragging on the ground.<\/p>\n

We decided to call a local licensed wildlife rehabilitator and reached Joy Huggins<\/a> of Wildlife Haven Waterloo<\/a>.\u00a0 She agreed to have a look at the animal if we could bring it in.\u00a0 Thus began the goose chase!<\/p>\n

By using an old blanket I was able to cover and calm the animal before lifting it into a cardboard box.<\/p>\n

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Jake is a juvenile porcupine.<\/p><\/div>\n

I kept the blanket over the box to keep it dark and muffle human sounds.<\/p>\n

The car ride to the rehab centre was quick and painless, but the goose started to throw a hissy fit when I took the box out of the car.<\/p>\n

Joy gave the goose some pain medication and examined the wing and shoulder joint.\u00a0 She said that a very swollen shoulder joint likely indicated a break in the joint, but that an X-ray would be needed.<\/p>\n

In the meantime the goose would get a sling stay in an enclosure at the rehabilitation centre.<\/p>\n

While I was there I also got to meet Jake a juvenile porcupine and Duck a female common merganser duck.\u00a0 I was also thrilled to see a young merlin, and a mother mallard with ducklings.\u00a0 Most of the animals had been orphaned or were recovering from a human-caused incident or an encounter with a house cat.<\/p>\n

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Common Merganser<\/p><\/div>\n

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Young Merlin<\/p><\/div>\n

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Canada Goose in its temporary home with an injured wing hanging at an uncomfortable angle.<\/p><\/div>\n

Now I know who to contact if I see another case of injured wildlife.\u00a0 If you are interested in helping wild animals, Joy accepts volunteer helpers and donations of supplies, produce and other necessities.\u00a0 Learn more at her website <\/a>and facebook <\/a>page.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday evening, after a relaxing dinner on the back patio, I gave chase to a wild goose.\u00a0 Here is how it happened. We live near Laurel Creek (the creek not the Nature Centre) and we we have a couple of parks near our house.\u00a0 Since the spring there have been at least 4 adult geese […]<\/p>\n

Read more about<\/strong> Wild Goose Chase<\/cite> »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13967,"featured_media":4191,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/schools.wrdsb.ca\/environmental-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/schools.wrdsb.ca\/environmental-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/schools.wrdsb.ca\/environmental-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schools.wrdsb.ca\/environmental-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13967"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schools.wrdsb.ca\/environmental-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/schools.wrdsb.ca\/environmental-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schools.wrdsb.ca\/environmental-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/schools.wrdsb.ca\/environmental-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schools.wrdsb.ca\/environmental-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schools.wrdsb.ca\/environmental-education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}