(geese honking) - We get a fair amount of visitors.

We like to bring nature and humans together in this park, so we kind of facilitate that as best as we can.

Geese will be basically everywhere in this park.

It's not our park, it's the geese's park.

They will forage in the grass, they will lounge around, swimming in the water, but mainly reproducing and nesting are why they come to this park.

They have their hatchlings and then they go on their way.

So last week I walked down to swim beach and I happened to see that there was a Canada goose on one corner of the point there, and there was a greater white fronted goose that was kind of acting as a barrier between myself and the goose.

It piqued my interest.

I started paying a little more attention, noticed that the the Canada goose was nesting, and I sent an email to the metro senior biologist, Katy Weil, and I explained to her the situation.

- So right now on the right, the female Canada goose is on a nest incubating eggs.

The mate is a greater white fronted goose, and he's the one that's been defending the nest, so he's been not going very far from her at all.

But it's interesting to see a Canada goose and a greater white fronted goose, which are completely different genus and species cohabitating, nesting.

Most people think that two different species can't breed and produce viable offspring, but we're wrong, and I love that about science is that we learn something every day, so I think these two are gonna have eggs that are of both species, so it's gonna be a genetic hybrid.

And we have had photographs of geese that are hybridized.

They look really interesting.

They have aspects of both parents.

I know it's happened in the Willamette Valley a few times, but I've not seen it happen here.

So it's possible that the only available mate happened to be a Canada goose, and she was receptive to the concept.

In many situations, birds will be a pair that travels around together for life.

Sometimes the goslings don't make it, and sometimes they do.

- These sorts of stories, they make the natural world more interesting, but also feel more like special and personal.

You know, we see a Canada goose every day, but seeing a greater white fronted is something rare, and then seeing the interaction between the two is really special, I think.

- This particular situation is unique to me and I wanna keep an eye on them and see how they're doing.

Why I study nature is that I will always be pleasantly surprised and the concept of these different species breeding, what comes after that?

We tend to want to make sense of things in a logical order, but embracing that entropy, that chaos, that uniqueness is understanding that it's something not to be afraid of, but to be excited by.

(geese honking)