Update from Simon in Oslo 7 March 2021

Simon Rix in Oslo has been out looking for the bean geese and has reported back with a couple of shots of a flock of 61 birds resting on the Glomma river at Akershus. 

Conditions as you see are icy and surrounding fields are snow bound. See pic below from 2018 when I visited the area with Simon. 

With fresh snow forecast for the area it will be interesting to see what the birds do next. Stick it out or return south. 

Further news from Trondheim would indicate our bird 7V is still in the area and now has Whooper Swans for company. 

Above pics courtesy of Simon Rix

Simon Rix 

Bean Geese at Akershus early April 2018

Pic by Angus Maciver

7V Trondheim Courtesy of Tom Roger

Update on spring migration in Scandanavia

 All of our tagged birds have made further progress north either in Norway or Sweden 

See map below. 

It appears that the weather forecast for the area is not good with further fresh snow likely in the next few days. 

We will await and see what our birds to, either stay put or return south to Pandrup in Denmark.

Latest news on spring migration 2021

 Our pair Tag39 & 20 have now moved north east away from Pandrup (Denmark) into Sweden and today appear to be north of Karlstad See pics attached. 

Meanwhile our other birds are still at Pandrup awaiting a move northwards to Akershus Norway. 

News of Bean Geese on spring migration 2021

 News has come in recently on 5 fabalis geese being seen on Sanday (Orkney) between 22-24 Feb. It is possible that they are part of a flock of the Slamannan birds that left Scotland on 20-21 Feb to fly to Denmark but got caught up in a strong gale which took them north to Sanday. See map below. 

Further to that one of our flock (7V) has now appeared at Trondheim in Norway See pic below. Courtesy of Tom Roger in Trondheim. This bird is paired with 3Y so it would appear that they have lost each other during the migration. Interesting to see if they meet up eventually in Norway before moving to Dalarna county in Sweden to the breeding area.

It is possible that it was also on Sanday but not seen and then got caught up in another strong wind which took it north east to Trondheim. See map below

All in all quite a dramatic turn of events and hopefully our birds will be able to orientate themselves and get back on track to their usual migration routes. 

Bean Geese spring Migration 2021

 We now have confirmation that 5 and probably 6 of our tagged birds have arrived at Pandrup Denmark and appear to have joined up at roosting and feeding areas. Only Ucol 30 has not logged in but we expect it to be with the others.

This confirms that our winter season has now closed. 

Thanks to those who monitor this blog and enjoy following the exploits of our Taiga bean geese flock. 

See you in the autumn (early October) for our new season. 

Attached screen grab from todays tracking at Pandrup.

Spring movement by ucol 30 today.

 After spending the night at Darnrig Moss east pool ucol 30 took off on her spring migration to Denmark

We are unsure at this stage if the other collared bird (whit24) went as well but time will tell. It is more than likely that our remaining c60 birds have gone east as well today. 

We hope to have observers out in Denmark to give us an update when conditions are suitable for observations to take place.

Meanwhile a couple of screen grabs from the tracking data for you to see. 

You will see ucol 30 off Burntisland at 0900 and then fly over Dunbar out into the north sea in a south easterly direction before correcting its flight path at 1600hrs towards the north east heading west coast of Denmark. Last position was at 1900hrs today. It is fabulous to be able to share this information with our blog watchers and it shows the great benefits we have in being able to follow our GPS collared birds.

Update on Bean Geese flock at Slamannan and Denmark

 A visit to the plateau yesterday was successful as I found a flock of 76 bean geese north of Slamannan. This is the highest count for a while but at least we know that they are surviving the cold and snowy conditions of recent times. 

Whilst in Denmark, we have noted that the flock there have taken to roosting in the sea off the coast. This behaviour has been noted in previous years and generally occurs when temperatures on land are well below freezing. 

I attach a map which shows the information received from some of the GPS tags.