English: Branta canadensis (Linnaeus, 1758) - female Canada goose with newly-hatched goslings (their first day & their first swim) in Newark, Ohio, USA (April) (photo by Mary Ellen St. John).

The Canada goose is the most widespread goose species in North America. Geese (Family Anatidae) are medium-sized, aquatic & terrestrial, and herbivorous. They generally feed on low-growing terrestrial or aquatic vegetation. Many subspecies of Canada goose have been proposed. They are distinguished principally by body size, relative neck length, and subtle to obvious plumage coloration patterns. Canada geese are moderately noisy birds, and are most recognizable in flight by their travel in V-formations.

Classification: Animalia, Chordata, Vertebrata, Aves, Anseriformes, Anatidae

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Birds are small to large, warm-blooded, egg-laying, feathered, bipedal vertebrates capable of powered flight (although some are secondarily flightless). Many scientists characterize birds as dinosaurs, but this is consequence of the physical structure of evolutionary diagrams. Birds aren’t dinosaurs. They’re birds. The logic & rationale that some use to justify statements such as “birds are dinosaurs” is the same logic & rationale that results in saying “vertebrates are echinoderms”. Well, no one says the latter. No one should say the former, either.

However, birds are evolutionarily derived from theropod dinosaurs. Birds first appeared in the Triassic or Jurassic, depending on which avian paleontologist you ask. They inhabit a wide variety of terrestrial and surface marine environments, and exhibit considerable variation in behaviors and diets.