News Update 20 January 2017

During the last week I and others have tried to confirm whether our flock size had increased as reported in the last blog.

Unfortunately the increase in birds has not been consolidated with many observations of less than what was reported.

I have spoken with the observer and he has confirmed that his increased total may have been mistaken as some birds were moving back and forward between two field systems and he did not have the time to make further checks before he left the area.

At this time of the year it can be frustrating for observers of the bean goose flock as they rarely join up together in one flock so that total flock numbers can be observed. Instead they split up in separate groups and some of them cannot be located easily because of the topography of the area.

Further efforts will be undertaken in the next week or so to see if any increase has taken place.

News Update 7 January 2017

Some good news to report that a visitor on his way through central Scotland has managed to record a total flock size of 236 which is the highest count this winter so far.

The birds were seen north west of Slamannan in two flocks and the viewer thought there may be more birds than that.

I have been out today after a NewYear holiday in mid Wales.

Poor visibility in the morning with visibility as low as 100m made looking for birds difficult but thanks to our GPS collared birds I was able to guess where to look.

I managed to find a flock of c100 birds in the same area as before but was unable to find further flocks today to confirm that we have had an influx of birds during the past two weeks.