Jenny Tweedie from RSPB Scotland fills us in our winter visitors and good places to see them.
Pink-footed geese (Chris Gomersall, rspb-images.com)
Geese must be one of the most gloriously visible heralds of winter. When their massive skeins start to appear overhead, colder days are sure to follow, and a whole new exciting season of wildlife watching gets underway.
I love watching geese, or listening to their breathy calls as they fly over in the dark. But I have to admit I often struggle to tell them apart on the wing. Luckily, the array of species we have in Scotland is not entirely bewildering, and some of those are area specific, so that does make it a bit easier to know (or at least guess!) what you’re seeing.
Pink-footed goose (Andy Hay, rspb-images.com)
One of the most common geese you’ll see flying in right now is the pink-footed goose. These medium-sized brown geese, with high-pitched calls and pink legs, spend their summers in Spitsbergen, Iceland and Greenland, and winter in Scotland around the east and Solway coasts, as well as sites through the central belt.
Good places to see them are: Loch of Strathbeg, Loch Leven, Crook of Baldoon.
Barnacle goose (Andy Hay, rspb-images.com)
Less common is the black, white and silvery-grey barnacle goose, which winters in two distinct areas: the Solway coast, and the Hebrides, particularly Islay. Barnies are small, neat geese which make a yappy, barking sound. The Solway birds featured heavily on this year’s Autumnwatch, which revealed many fascinating facts about their lives!
Good places to see them: Mersehead, Loch Gruinart, Crook of Baldoon.
Greenland white-fronted goose (Andy Hay, rspb-images.com)
Greenland white-fronted geese (which for a while I thought were called green and white fronted geese...) are a much rarer goose whose numbers have been dropping sharply in recent years. They’re a grey goose, and the white-fronted bit refers to the white patch they have around their bills.
Good places to see them: Ken-Dee Marshes, Islay reserves.
Bean goose (Mark Hamblin, rspb-images.com)
Of all our regular wintering geese, the rarest are the bean geese. Only around 200 of these dark grey geese winter in Scotland, returning faithfully every year to just a few fields on the Slamannan Plateau, near Falkirk. They’re called taiga bean geese, because of the taiga forest in Scandinavia and Siberia where they spend the summer (as opposed to tundra bean geese which are rarer visitors to the UK). Their calls are quite high pitched, and similar to the pink-footed geese.
Good places to see them: they move around a lot and are easily disturbed, so best waiting for a guided event to see these ones.
In fact, guided events are a great way to see all these geese! Here are some that are coming up in the next few weeks:
Barnacle Goose Watch at Mersehead
Return of the Geese at Ken-Dee Marshes
Sunrise Goose Watch at Loch Lomond
Tweet about your goose sightings using #goosewatch