Provisional Results from the November Census...

This is the first time we have tried to conduct a Census of the geese at such a late stage in the Autumn, when we attempted to count as many as possible of our flyway geese on their early wintering grounds. The vast majority of counts came from the weekend of 08 - 09 November 2014.
Whilst figures are still very provisional, and therefore shouldn't be quoted elsewhere, a total of 32,065 brent geese were counted. These were distributed as follows:

Northern Ireland:

Lough Foyle 859
Strangford Lough 17,560
Dundrum Bay 244
Carlingford Lough 124

Republic of Ireland:

Carlingford Lough 7
Dundalk Bay 491
Boyne Estuary 52
Laytown Beach 2
Rogerstwon Estuary 259
Malahide Estuary 342
Baldoyle Bay 69
Dublin Bay 3,288
Kilcoole 3
Wexford Harbour 102
Bannow Bay 186
Ballyteige Bay 33
Tramore Bay 574
Clonea Bay 6
Dungarvan Harbour 700
Castlemaine Harbour 1201
Tralee Bay 3335
Banna Strand 71
Galway Bay 270
Clew Bay 21
The Mullet 217
Killala Bay 352
Ballisodare Bay 234
Sligo Bay 219
Drumcliff Bay 95
Donegal Bay 21
Keadue Strand 25
Braade Strand 52
Ballyness Bay 182
Lough Swilly 100

Scottish Islands:

Islay 26

Scotland:

Loch Ryan 35

England:

Morecambe Bay 80
Dee Estuary 95

Wales:

Anglesey 139
Menai Strait 192

Channel Islands:

Jersey 42

France:

Normandy 160

Overall, the statistics on productivity show that, compared with the total wipe-out disaster last year, productivity and average brood sizes in breeding season 2014 were good, at just over 4% and 2.1 respectively.

Morocco - Now What's That All About??...

An interesting brent goose sighting has come in from Paddy Woodworth from Dublin. He was on holiday at Essaouira, on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, and took the photograph below of a goose he spotted in a pond in coastal dune forest on 02 January 2015:

 

Paddy reported it to eBird, who queried it as extremely unusual, but were happy with his full record and pictures. Subsequently, a guide at Essaouira confirmed to him that brent geese winter just north of the town regularly.

Can anyone add to the current state of knowledge on the southern limits for the species?





Red Letter Day for the Brent Database!!...

With the entry this morning of the 28 December 2014 record from Tramore Backstrand, Co. Waterford, of CURY, with its mate CSRY, from Micheal Cowming, the database has reached the amazing new milestone of over 150,000 re-sightings of marked birds!!
Well done to each of the 986 observers who had been involved in contributing to this figure, with rings read at 1,131 sites and subsites across the flyway. It's no wonder I'm suffering from Repetitive Strain Injury!!