Egyptian geese make themselves at home in Jersey

SPRING LAKE, N.J. — Visitors flock to this tony seaside enclave from all over the world, drawn by its pristine beaches, multimillion-dollar homes and quaint downtown.

But lately, one out-of-towner in particular has attracted a lot of attention: the Egyptian goose.

Smaller than the ubiquitous Canada goose, this exotic waterfowl species, which looks like a cross between a goose and a duck, is a native of Africa, as its name suggests. Chiefly found along the Nile River and south of the Sahara Desert, a handful of these birds turned up here about a year ago, and now seem quite content to take up permanent residence along the borough's namesake lake.

And who could blame them? Ordinarily it costs a fortune to move here, but geese face no such barriers, with or without a hefty nest egg.

For avid birders, this is old news. There have been sightings of Egyptian geese in parts of New Jersey going back to the late 1990s. More recently they've popped up in New Brunswick along the Raritan River and in and around coastal ponds between Asbury Park and Point Pleasant Beach and in more southern portions of the state.

But how did they get here?

It's something of a mystery. A popular theory, apparently apocryphal, is that the Jersey flock originated as escapees from the safari park at Six Flags Great Adventure. However, Bill Rives, the safari's director and chief veterinarian, discounted that explanation.

"The safari has been a popular spot for migratory Canada, Egyptian and snow geese for approximately 30 years," a spokeswoman for the park said in an e-mail, citing Rives. "This is likely due to our ample food supply year round. Our original Egyptian goose collection was pinioned, and therefore flightless."

Could a flock of these geese have taken an epic wrong turn, or gotten vacuumed up and re-deposited here by a hurricane? Not likely, says Scott Barnes of the New Jersey Audubon Society.

He's confident that the birds must have escaped from a zoo or aviary, or been released by a private collector at some point. In any case, they seem perfectly at home here.

"Every year I hear from people who say, 'These aren't supposed to be here,' or 'What the heck are these?' " Barnes said. A resident of Atlantic Highlands, he's encountered Egyptian geese himself on several occasions in the area.

The birds aren't exclusive to New Jersey. They're also growing in numbers in California, Arkansas, Texas, Florida and New York, Barnes said.

Recognizable by their gray-brown or red-brown and white feathers and the chestnut-colored rings encircling their yellow eyes, the geese, considered sacred by the ancient Egyptians and domesticated by the early Romans and Greeks, mate for life and are known to be attentive parents.

They often nest in trees or cliffsides. Come fledging time, the parents will stand on the ground and urge on their young, much like human moms and dads will do to get circumspect novice swimmers to unwrap their trembling toes from the edge of the pool and take the plunge.

Despite their striking features, spotting one in the wild doesn't count on a birder's "life list," the sacrosanct journal that catalogs a lifetime of sightings. Barnes says that's because the African waterfowl are not a native species, although Florida birding authorities recently changed the rules in that state, a testament to how well Egyptian geese have established themselves there.

It's possible the same thing could happen in New Jersey eventually, Barnes said. The European starling, the rock pigeon and the house sparrow — all full-fledged North American birds now — started out as immigrants, too, he noted.