Web Log

Hi this is my bi-ocasional blog.

Nine chicks and Al Capone

Thursday, May 19

Walked down the river front to the Hiram Walker distillery. A pair of Canada Geese were strutting about with nine chicks in tow. This is the largest number of chicks I have ever seen in one family. They were very close to a small pier that juts out into the river.

At one time Hiram Walker used to commute across the river from his home in Detroit. Later in the days of prohibition (1919-1932), smuggling rye into the states was big business. Al Capone, himself, was know to visit Windsor.

The united States lagged Canada in both the enactment and repeal of prohibition legislation. Prince Edward Island voted dry in 1901 and most of the other provinces towards the end of the 1914-18 war. The zenith was reached in 1920 when outside imports were interdicted by provincial plebiscites.

However, even before this repeals had started with Québec voting ‘wet' in 1919, BC in 1920, Manitoba in 1923, Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1924, Newfoundland in 1925, Ontario and New Brunswick in 1927, and Nova Scotia in 1930. The last province to allow drinking was Prince Edward Island, 1948.

Federal prohibition legislation still exists to allow communities to ban liquor. Some small towns, especially up north do this. I think I wrote up this bit of history because there was a gap in my historical knowlwedge. I came from Britain where the concept of prohibition is alien to the culture.

Leaving The Nest

Sunday, May 8

And in Windsor it is spring; sunny and warm.

I was down by the river today and had the rare and amusing privilege of watching seven Canada Geese goslings leave their nest forever and take to the water.

The parent geese had nested in a buttress of some sheet steel pilings that stick out into the river. This steel nest was about 30 inches in diameter, 12 inches deep and about five feet above the water. Once the chicks left this nest there was no way back. The nest was partially lined with down from the parents.

I was attracted by the two adult birds honking and the cries of the babies. Three of the goslings were already in the water, with the adults, and the heads of the other four kept bobbing up over the edge of the steel nest. It was possible to stand so that I was only eight feet away from the nest and look down into it. This drew a certain amount of hissing from one of the Geese, presumably the gander. The female stayed close to the chicks while the male swam guard and hissed.

The chicks method of getting out of the nest was to jump up, hook their neck over the edge of the sheet steel, then flip a wing over the steel then roll over the top. They then fell upside down on a steel girder two feet below. Some of them were quite nonchalant about this landing others seemed quite dazed, but they all recovered quickly. They were now only three feet above the water so they launched themselves into the air flapping their puny wings rapidly. This seemed to move them forward through the air and slowed their descent. The chicks escaped from the nest in regular intervals of about three minutes.

Once in the water they were all quite capable of heading rapidly for mummy. Geese must be able to count up to seven, because as soon as the last one had joined the flotilla, they all headed for open water.