Do Canadian Geese ever nest in Texas?

I have had a pair on my big pond for 12 days and they look like happy campers. Do they ever build nests and lay eggs in Texas?

Canadian Geese usually stay in Canada...

Canada Geese are migratory as well as Resident.

What you have is a pair of Resident Canada Geese that are probably setting up a nest to use as their Breeding area for this spring.

I have several properties that have nesting pairs on them.

They are really populating in North Texas!

J.J.

I also have seen them playing golf at night when the club is closed.

Cheap a$$ Canadians!

Pretty sure they do. We now enjoy an early goose season in September due to the resident geese population growing and hanging around a particular of Texas year round.

How big are the Canada's shooterwalker? Residents are normally giants.

Yea Sniper John I was noticing these seemed to be extra large. this makes me happy the idea of having some resident Canada geese nest on my place. I may take them some corn.

Thanks for the comments.

When I raised Giant Canada Geese down in Galveston Co in my teen years and early college, I would not pinon their wings (remove the end tip of the wing at a day old) so that they could do as they please. Sure, I would end up losing 2-4 each year especially when the early fall month tropical storm winds would hit and they got the notion to start flying the city and then county. Some of the Giant Canadas could be from private folks who have or had a federal waterfowl propogator license and as I did, would not pinon their gosling wings and upon adulthood, left for other areas in the state.

A few hunters would bag a bird or two each season as well - how I knew as my father and I would band their legs with our own bands.

corn feed geese

Don't make me post my "fat Canadian" picture !!

Lake X used to roost several hundred geese during teal season and early duck season until they started flying too close to mine and some of the other peoples blinds. Didn't see them much after the first few weeks of the regular season. Some up to 20lbs

thanks for the replys

There are a bunch of them on Lake Athens and surrounding ponds.

There is a Canadian goose refuge north of Paris on 271. It holds Canadian geese year round. I work in Paris and we see them through out the summer grazing the grass on the lawn at the plant where I work. I have no idea if they actually reproduce there but staying there year round I have to say they more than likely do reproduce.
I was in OKC a couple of weeks ago and was really surprised at the numbers of city geese I was seeing. They probably out number the pigeons there......

We had a pair nest and raise several young back in '09 on a little pond adjacent to the house in a little patch of woods over here by Caddo Mills.

Watched them through the spring and summer...the brood got smaller (from 8 to 4) but the ones that made it through looked big and strong.

Come that November, they all took off for who knows where and none ever returned to nest again.

Was kinda' hoping the pair would come back and raise another brood.

My uncle has five on his ranch near Lampasas that have been there 3 years or so that stay year-round.

We had a huge flock hanging out at Frisco Lakes Golf Course besides the resident bunch. They were roosting in a green field across 423. Great watching them. We got everything out here, Fox, Coyote, Rabbit, bobcat, pellet gun heaven, drives all the old folks nuts out here!!!

We have a place up in that area and see geese all the time. Just never when I am hunting.

They call them greaters I believe. If they ever get really established people are going to start complaining about the mess they leave. I use to spend a lot of time in Indiana and the people that had lakefront up there were always looking for ways to keeep them off their yards. Goose carp is nasty stuff. ever heard the saying "carp like a goose"

+1 on the crap all over the golf course

All Canada Geese are actually Greater Canada Geese. Though I too tend to just call small Canadas Lessers and large Canadas Greaters because I can't tell one from another. And I am sure the common names vary and are regional. Cacklers are now a separate species. I tried to identify some resident geese I killed in the last three years and eventually just gave up. There are four subspecies of Branta canadensis in Texas

maxima (Giant) This is the largest and the one that was mostly stocked by Oklahoma on purpose. Why I think some of the ones I have taken East and North of DFW may be this one.

interior (?) Another Large one probably more east texas and upper coast. I am sure I have taken some of these as residents too and just called them greaters or giants for not knowing what to call any of them really.

moffiti (Moffitt's) Another Large one, may be the ones found more west in Texas, but also the central coast.

parvipes (Lesser) The smaller ones, but bigger than cacklers. I think I have killed these as migrants just about everywhere I have ever hunted Canada geese.

Some north Texas Residents that have never been to Canada and never will.