One is bigger than the other. Every year I have 10 to 16 geese that come in, in November and stay until February or March. The flock slowly gets smaller. They come in, in the evening and stay all night. They leave well after dawn and are gone all day. The whole pond is 1.5 acre, but also a long "waterway" that gets run-off from a 30 acre pasture uphill from it. The waterway is 350 yards long and about 30' wide.

But this pair stays into April. This is the 9th year I've seen this. A friend of mine told me it is probably not the exact same pair, because geese don't typically live that long. Does that sound right? Babies born here, come back later and have their young here. Is that also right?

Geese can and do live longer than 9 years. 10 to 25 years is normal for them from what I have read. I saw one tag report on one that was tagged in Russia 27 years before it was killed in Minnesota.

Yours could be same pair or different they all look alike to me.

Yes they return to the same spots every year and they mate for life, meaning only have one mate unless one of them dies.
They may allow their offspring to nest nearby, but can be aggressive and keep other nesting pairs away.

Females are smaller.

Thank you

This

I've got the same thing going on at my place too JG. I don't live to far from you. Been doing it the last 5 or 6 years. They hang out with my cows.

I’ve shot geese that were banded as adult birds and were 17+ years ago…

Could definitely be the same birds year after year.

And yes, a lot of times the babies will come back to where they were hatched the rest of their lives to do their own nesting