geese, geese and yet more geese.

Today was the last Icelandic Goose Census count and is usually a relatively relaxed affair as most of the geese have gone south.

As with all IGC counts you need to be on site before dawn as geese are awkward little blighters and can decide to depart almost at first light so if you miss dawn you can miss the birds!

Well this normally is not a major issue but this morning at 0615ish it was minus six at home - it took over half an hour to get the car frost free and safe to drive. A few minor skids latter I was sitting in my count site where the temperature was a balmy minus two - the blue that my skin turns matches the blue of our fleeces!. As the light came up a small group of ten birds flew over head. Over the next 40 minutes when only a couple of thousand geese could be seen at the south end of the Loch not much else happened and then just after 0810 the geese decided to stop tormenting us and suddenly appeared en masse from all points of the compass - they had been hiding in the dunes and on a field just to the south of the Loch behind a small ridge. The next 45 minutes were quite intense with large groups all heading off west - which as I was counting birds going north meant that I was not very busy and I could enjoy the spectacle. Kath at the western count site was not quite so relaxed though.

By 0915 things had slowed and we decided to move to positions allowing us to count those geese that had decided not too go off and feed. When I got to the centre I was expecting to see a couple of hundred birds left loafing around so was slighty surprised to be greeted by the site of several thousand geese feeding on our fields. After another half and hour we had finally got a count of all the remaining geese.

By the time I had finished the other counters had congregated in the centre and were trying to thaw out. We realised by then that we had had a good count but we were all surprised when we tallied up and came to a hugely impressive countof just under 37000 - the December average is normally around 20000. To put this in context in 2008 our peak count was less than 35000, where as this year this wasnt even the second highest count it was the third highest. There were five very satisfied but cold counters - although I must go and find the random goose generator and turn it off before next weeks webcount when we will also have to count all the ducks!