Geese on the South Saskatchewan River

By Lisa Parent

Birds delay their migration south for winter as warm weather persists

Dec 6, 2023 | 4:05 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – There have been hundreds of Canadian geese sitting on the South Saskatchewan River lately. For many of those Geese, this may be as far south as they migrate, with warm and dry weather conditions expected to continue.

Mhairi Donnelly, is an interpreter at Police Point Park. She says smaller birds, like the Warbler, tend to migrate south in August or September. This is based on changes in temperature, daylight and even atmospheric pressure.

Some birds, like the Canadian goose, only migrate when they’re forced to.

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“For some geese, this is south for them, but many will actually migrate into the United States over winter,” explains Donnelly. “But really for them, if a river does not completely freeze over, they’ll stay because they can feed. So for some of these birds, they weren’t here a month, two months ago. These birds will have come from much further north in Canada, where it has already begun to get colder.”