Reports are filtering down to Cornwall from various parts of the Emerald Isle, and further north in Iceland, that the brent are returning from their summer jaunt to the far north. Already there are an impressive 5000 or so gathering at the north end of Strangford Lough, and there has been a trickle of birds been seen flying south past the Bridges of Ross (in County Clare over on the West Coast) in recent days too - why any of the seawatchers here are counting geese rather than keeping an eye out for more exotic things is anyone's guess!!
All this means its hopefully not too long until I'm escape the computer again and am back enjoying views like this!! Hopefully the relatively early return of such high numbers of geese implies there are lots of non-breeding immatures from last years successful breeding season rather than that it has been a bad breeding season as was the case for so many subarctic species. We'll only get a true idea of this when family parties begin to return in a week or two...
