I wrongly chose wildlife questions although had a nice e-mail from someone.
I am from the Isle of Man and each september stay near the Kyle of Lochalsh, prefer the area as easy connections for return to IOM. The past two years we have chosen about the 11th-20th september we seem to have missed the wonderful noises and sights of the overhead migration of geese. Three years ago we picked later in september, they flew over mid september! so we are now covering mid september around the above dates but appear to be out of luck once more. I have gone onto reports from Skye birds site and it appears we missed it by about 4-5 days.
I would be grateful for any advice knowing its all about luck but birds are creatures of habit also.
I guess one year out at Coral beach on the Isle of Skye where hundreds came in skein after skein all day was one of those lifetime experiences never to be forgotten but longed for repeat.
Thankyou
Liz Isle of Man
Hi Liz
Whilst I am not familiar with north west Scotland here at Loch of Strathbeg in the north east the arrival of our pink footed geese is dependant upon the wind abd as such virtually unpredicatable. This year our first brids returned on 8th September seven days earlier than last year. By the end of September last year we had only reached just over 6000 where as this year on 29th September we had our fourth highest ever count - a staggering 60626 pink footed geese on the reserve.
In general if the winds are southerly then the geese probably wont appear as they do not like flying into a head wind, however once the wind swings round to anything vaguely northerly they start to appear.
Barnacle geese at Strathbeg are completely different and tend to turn up in mid September (the last tw years the first arrival date has been 22nd September) although they do not arrive in anything like the numbers that the pink feet do and some years are very scarce on the reserve.
Unfortunately probably not much help in trying to plan next years holiday!
Happy goose watching
Dom
Hi Dom,
Thank you for replying to my enquiry, that makes a lot of sense as was told when they want to come they will come but figured weather must play a part. Guess we will stick to the usual dates 2nd into 3rd week as longer daylight also for us. Just this window once a year for us in Scotland it's nice to capture as many wildlife sightings as we can, birds and mammals in particular but the year we were under this mass flyover which went on all day long we were out on the Isle of Skye that day was something I will never forget.
Thank you again,