Date: Sat, 24 May 2003 19:16:47 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: rob gibbs Subject: Re: Out of Area Oddity MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This may be a possible explaination. Many species of waterfowl including Canada geese do what is called egg dumping or nest dumping. They will lay eggs in the nest of other females of the same species. This is especially common where many birds nest in a small area. In fact the once common practice of placing several wood duck boxes close together is now not used because it promotes egg dumping and can reduce offspring. The egg dumping can lead to extra large clutch size. Much of the time if the number of eggs is excessive the female cannot effectively incubate them all and some or all won't hatch. If the number is really high the nest is sometimes abandoned. We monitor eggs at Lake Needwood near Rockville and our record so far is a nest with 22 eggs in it - it was abandoned when we found it. It sounds like maybe the female you saw may have had a few extra eggs dropped in her nest but not so many that she could not get 15 to hatch. Other explanations may be just an unusually high number of eggs produced by that female. Or she picked up a few extra goslings from another female's brood. Rob Gibbs, Damascus Bob Mumford wrote: >This past week I was in North Park, Colorado working the Sage Grouse morning >dances and drove by the edge of Walden Reservoir. I was very surprised to see >a Canada Goose adult followed by 13, 1-3 day old goslings, followed by the >other parent and then 2 more goslings, for a total of 15 young. > >Never having witnessed anywhere near this number of young, upon return I >checked the Audubon Encyclopedia of North American Birds and it says 2-12 eggs. >The Birders Handbook states 4-10. > >Anyone ever hear of 15? Explanation? > >BTW, I did report it to the local DOW office. > >Bob Mumford >Darnestown > >======================================================================= >To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com >with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey >======================================================================= > ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================