Mr. Lishman's daughter, Carmen (who in real life did not teach the geese to migrate), shows up on film as one of Ms. Paquin's classmates, and his son Geordie was the film's goose wrangler.

Although some geese on Long Island migrate to Canada in the winter, most are "residents" and spend the entire year on the Island, said Mike Scheibel, another senior wildlife biologist for the state.

The geese are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, even though they are not an endangered species and no longer migrate, said Bobby Horvath, a licensed wildlife rehabilitator in Massapequa.

She said that before wild ducks and geese migrate, they stuff themselves, engorging their livers with fat to provide energy for the flight.

The red-breasted goose migrates entirely overland, and so can stop for fuel every night - unlike those that cross the open ocean.

He tells them he can see geese (note the choice of bird), though it's July and geese would not be migrating then in the skies of Oregon.

Bar-headed geese and black-necked cranes migrate to Ladakh's lakes and marshes.

Such geese, he said, do not migrate - not even to tag along with a migratory flock passing through.

Ospreys, egrets, pelicans, ducks, cranes, geese, and many others migrated to it.

That is why people write songs about geese, honest, hard-working, migrating geese, that is.