Life Photo Meme: Travel

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Subphylum: Vertebrata

Class: Aves

Order: Anseriformes

Family: Anatidae

These Canadian geese represent travel in so many different ways. I took a picture of these geese on a recent trip to New Mexico. Of course the geese themselves are highly migratory; flying from northern Canada to the southern US.

There are 11 subspecies of Canadian goose found in the northern hemisphere, and their body size decreases with increasing latitude. This split in sizes may be due to the fact that Canadian geese practice assortative mating. In this case, the birds choose their mates based on size; they prefer to mate with a goose that is the same size as them.

In my childhood, seeing geese flying south was a regular feature of the fall season. It seems very odd to me to see these birds flying about in the winter, now that I live in the southern areas.