News Update on Slamannan Bean Goose flock

There have been no positive sightings of bean geese in the Slamannan area so far this autumn.

On checking the blog of Simon the Oslo birder today on his return from a birding trip to the Lofoten Islands he has checked out the bean geese flock and found the same group of birds in residence.

He has posted some pictures of same and they can be seen at oslobirder.blogspot.co.uk

I would imagine that our geese would wait for favourable winds and weather conditions before deciding to move.

The westerly gales that we have at present are not conducive for geese flying the north sea to Scotland.

Bean Geese Update 21 September 2016

I have had a drive around the Slamannan Plateau this week and all of the fields are looking in good condition for the return of our flock from Norway.

I checked the bean goose website this afternoon and see that our birds with live collars are still NE of Oslo next to the Glomma River where they go in the autumn after visiting Denmark.

Their is high pressure over Scandanavia at present which might encourage them to move but will depend on wind directions.

News update on bean geese in Norway courtesy of Simon Rix

Simon was out on 12 September to try and age the bean goose flock for juveniles with adults.
This task is not an easy one as we well know from our experiences at Slamannan. It would seem that only 4 juveniles could be seen in a flock of 129 birds.

Almost similar numbers to what we found at Slamannan last autumn.

Simon has nice pictures and some movies of the flock which are well worth looking at.

(oslobirder.blogspot.co.uk)

Update on swan and goose reports now available from WWT

For Bean Goose enthusiasts the link below will give you the annual report from WWT  on Bean Geese


http://monitoring.wwt.org.uk/our-work/goose-swan-monitoring-programme/species-accounts/bean-goose/


With thanks to Carl Mitchell and the team at Slimbridge.