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The young are attended by both parents during the period of growth. Moth- 

 er and father molt their wing feathers and are flightless while attending the 

 young. Children and parents take wing at about the same time in late sum- 

 mer, and they are all together for the trip southward. Mayr (1942:242) 

 sums up the evidence to decide that "geese are among the very few birds 

 in which the family does not break up at the end of the breeding season, 

 but parents and young stay together for nearly a year. They migrate to- 

 gether to the winter quarters, they spend the entire winter together, and 

 they do not separate until after their return to their nesting area." The Elders 

 (1949) show that the "small goose flock is usually a family and that larger 

 flocks are frequently multiples of families rather than mere aggregations of 

 individuals." In our own color-banded, free-winged Canada Geese at Delta 

 we have seen adults and young-of-the-year depart southward together in No- 

 vember and return, still as a united group, the next April. Where such kin- 

 dred ties apply, the immature accompany the experienced elders and do not 

 pioneer their own first migrations. "There is little doubt that guidance by 

 older, experienced birds plays a decisive part in the directional flying of such 

 species" (Mayr, 1952:394). 



In North American ducks there is quite a different arrangement. The 

 father parts company with his mate before the young are hatched,* leaving 

 the nesting area to join other males that, like himself, are molting into the 

 eclipse plumage. In the Mallard and other river ducks the mother usually 

 stays with her ducklings until they are on the wing; then she leaves them to 

 their own devices while she molts the flight feathers. More often in Canvas- 

 back and other diving ducks the mother abandons her charges many days 

 (sometimes several weeks) before they are ready to fly. Once free of ma- 

 ternal companionship, the young ducks are completely "on their own"; 

 there is no bond of kinship between parent and juvenile after the break-up. 



• An exception is the Ruddy Duck, in which the male frequently, but by no means always, 

 stays for a while with hen and brood. In all other species the drake only rarely is seen with his 

 family. 



