Doesn't it seem like Canada geese - those characters with the long black necks and distinctive flash of white up top - are just everywhere these days? What's going on?

"Basically it comes down to there's plenty of good habitat for geese in Rochester," says Mike Wasilco, regional wildlife manager for the Department of Environmental Conservation.

Geese like areas where there's short grass next to water, Wasilco says. In Rochester, that tends to mean retention ponds, like the ones at Marketplace Mall in Henrietta. But geese also congregate around the Cobb's Hill reservoir, Schoen Place in Pittsford, the Port of Rochester, and area golf courses and athletic fields.

Geese have no natural predators and tend to do well around humans, Wasilco says.

Much of the geese are residential geese - their population numbers 200,000 statewide, says DEC statistics. While geese were traditionally migratory birds, residential geese will nest in temperate areas and then travel farther south if the weather gets too harsh and food too hard to come by. Otherwise, they just stay put.

Sometimes food - often given to the birds by humans - helps keep the geese settled. But with that comes a caution: the foods that people feed geese often aren't good for the birds. Bread, for example, doesn't contain the nutrients that geese need.

In Clinton County, a dozen geese were found dead from a fungus infection which affects the respiratory system. Geese get the disease - Aspergillosis - from eating moldy grains. The DEC issued an alert asking people to stop feeding the geese.

"Feeding does help hold birds in an area," Wasilco says.