Photographer Captures Day-Old Goslings Leaping From Their Nest

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Photographer Captures Day-Old Goslings Leaping From Their Nest


A fluffy yellow gosling leaps from a large stick nest perched atop a tall, dark pole, while another gosling watches from the edge.
A day-old gosling leaps from its nest as its sibling watches on. | Photo by Jake Bonello / USFWS

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has shared a series of amazing pictures that show six brave goslings taking a leap of faith.

Jake Bonello is an avid photographer and the refuge manager at the Julia Butler Hansen Refuge for the Columbian White-tailed Deer, where he took the photos.

A fluffy yellow gosling is captured mid-air in a horizontal, diving posture against a blurred green background.

A fluffy gosling is captured mid-air, appearing to jump or leap just above the surface of calm, rippling water.

Each year, the Canada goose goslings must leap from their nesting platform, which is 25 feet in the air, so they can join their parents below.

“Don’t worry, this is perfectly normal,” writes the U.S. Department of the Interior in a recent Facebook post.

“Goslings are incredibly lightweight, and their fluffy down helps cushion the fall. After the big jump, they’ll spend the rest of the summer sticking close to their parents until they’re ready to take flight on their own.”

Two fluffy goslings sit in a large stick nest perched atop a tall, dark metal pole.

A fluffy, yellow and brown gosling falls headfirst through the air against a blurred green background.

The Dodo notes that Canada geese typically lay eggs in clutches of roughly six, and after about 25 days of incubation, they are ready to walk and swim after just a single day.

The goslings seen in these photos took the leap of faith on April 24, 2025, and they will have spent the summer sticking close to their parents until they’re ready to take flight on their own.

Three fluffy yellow goslings sit together in a large stick nest built atop a gray post.

A Canada goose takes flight from a large, stick-built nest perched atop a metal pole against a blurred forest background.

In an interview with USFWS a couple of years ago, the photographer Jake Bonello explained that he got into photography during an eagle tour on the shores of Lake Erie in 2014.

“I decided to take my parents’ camera with me, and by the end of the day we saw over a hundred eagles,” he said. “That’s all it took. I ended up getting a point-and-shoot camera that Christmas, and in 2017, I upgraded to an entry-level DSLR. Today I have an even better DSLR with a 150-600 mm lens, and it never leaves my side.”

Geese can be great subjects for photographers: in 2023, a Dutch photographer somehow captured a goose flying upside down with its head the right way up that same year a photographer in Jersey, an English Channel island, captured a peregrine falcon hitching a ride on a goose.

Image creditsPhotographs by Jake Bonello / USFWS

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