Baby Goose Finds Family with Cranes!

A Heartwarming Tale from Madison, WI!

A local wildlife photographer has been documenting the "feathered soap opera" as it unfolds at a Madison, Wis., pond.

By Bailey Richards

Bailey Richards is a writer-reporter at PEOPLE. She has been working at PEOPLE since 2023 and interned with the brand in 2022. Her work has previously appeared in digital publications like Paper Magazine and TV Insider.

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Published on August 5, 2025 04:32PM EDT

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NEED TO KNOW

A baby Canada goose abandoned as an egg found an "unexpected family" with a pair of Sandhill cranes in Madison, Wis.
The family of four (the two Sandhill cranes, their colt, and the gosling) formed in the spring of 2025 and is still going strong.
Madison-based photographer Alan Ginsberg has been documenting the bird family and sharing their story on Facebook.

The Unlikely Cross-Species Clan

At a Wisconsin pond, a pair of cranes is raising an abandoned goose as their own. The unlikely family formed in Madison, Wis., and resident Alan Ginsberg has been documenting the whole "feathered soap opera" on the Facebook group Wisconsin In Pictures.

The cross-species clan first formed when a pair of sandhill cranes — a fixture at the Madison pond — returned to the area this spring with their "newly hatched" colt — the term for a baby sandhill crane — only to discover that their nesting spot had flooded, according to Ginsberg, a retired teacher and photographer.

"So, like any good parents in crisis, they pivoted," he wrote on Facebook. The cranes found a nest left vacant by some Canada geese — or so they thought. One member of the goose family had been left behind: a single egg. It hatched days later, and the gosling who emerged "promptly bonded with the first large, warm object in sight: Mama Crane," Ginsberg said.

Breaking News! The geese were not thrilled about the unauthorized adoption!

All was going swimmingly for the "unexpected family" — the two Sandhill cranes, their colt, and the gosling — until the Canada geese returned, creating what the photographer dubbed "the cutest custody battle ever."

The geese, who were "not thrilled about the unauthorized adoption," made an appearance at the nest, which they subsequently circled for an hour, according to the photographer. As a result, the orphaned gosling cuddled up to the surrogate mom, while the crane father got protective.

In Ginsberg's words, "he squared up and charged the geese like, 'Back off. He's ours now.'"

Growing Strong!

The newly formed family remained together, and has been going strong — and growing — since, according to Ginsberg's Facebook updates. "The gosling," he wrote, "has fully committed to its new life and struts through the marsh alongside its crane sibling like it was born for this."

Beyond the Pond: A Bigger Message

Ginsberg is now sharing photos of the Sandhill crane parents and their fuzzy babies strutting as postcards, with portions of each sale going to the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, Wis. It's a rare sight, but not entirely unprecedented, according to Smithsonian magazine.

Similar family situations have arisen in Madison before, and several states away in Michigan and Alaska, per Smithsonian.

Both Canada geese and Sandhill cranes have proven very adept at moving into urban landscapes, leading to more ecological overlap, Anne Lacy, director of eastern flyway programs at the International Crane Foundation, told the magazine. With the species in closer proximity, "unusual interactions" like the crane-geese family are far more likely, Lacy said.

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And while the pond drama and resulting found family have been fun to observe, Ginsberg believes there is a larger message buried under all of the fuss and feathers.

The Madison-based photographer believes their story holds "some sort of message," he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. If animals "can be kind and accept a stranger, so to speak, into their family, I'm seeing this as an analogy," Ginsberg told the Journal Sentinel. "It's a chance to counteract that whole concept of fear of the stranger. If these creatures can get along, why the hell can't humans?"

"We've been taught lately to fear the stranger, to basically become isolated and cut ourselves off from anything that is unknown," he told the newspaper. "And here you have this blended family who have no questions to ask. They've accepted each other."

Think about it!

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