…time for the goose counting season to start and over the past two days I’ve been lucky enough to join Fiona MacGillivray, Senior Research Assistant, Ecologist and experienced Goose Counter whilst she counts literally thousands of geese around the Loch Gruinart area. Across the island there are eight counters and their helpers and eight routes from which geese are logged, the full route is driven on each of the two days and the time, number of geese and the field they are in is noted so that all the information collected can be combined, sorted and used to figure out just how many geese are on the island. Any guesses? Well actually, I can’t give you a total just yet but as soon as I know I’ll post it here right away and you can see how close you were! Just to give you a few hints the first day saw us counting roughly 14,300 Barnacle geese, 790 Greenland white-fronted geese and 100 Greylag geese and the second day brought 16,100 Barnacle geese, 600 Greenland white-fronted geese and 130 Greylag geese. Not only did we see lots of geese but also Twite, Greenfinch, Redwing, Fieldfare, Hen Harrier, Buzzard, a very close Sparrowhawk, Woodcock, Merlin, Red throated diver, Lapwing, Yellowhammer, Chaffinch, Chough, Scaup and Red breasted merganser to name but a few. So if you’re heading to Islay soon be rest assured that with a bit of patience and a keen eye there’s plenty out here to see.
(Fiona counting geese - what you can't tell here is that it was hailing into the landrover and we were being buffeted by near gale force winds!)
(Barnacle geese and a Greenland white-fronted goose, pictures courtesy of the RSPB.)