The sun kept shining today and
Julian Bell joined me on my customary goose chase. Reading the neck rings on
the Bean Geese was my goal for the day and things didn’t start off to well.
When we arrived at the usual fields at Horgen there were no geese to be seen
which was confirmed also by Odd Rygh who was leaving the area. We then checked
out the river at Udenes there were also none to be seen here. This was
unexpected as the geese had been seen on the fields on both Saturday and
Sunday. The river level has risen again which makes me wonder whether the geese
are having to find another roost which can then cause them to use other fields.
The answer came when Odd who was off to work reported that he had found them
8km to the north. We made haste there and found them in exactly the same field they had used in September (when they did
indeed use another roost site). We had in total 139 fabalis Bean Geese, the 2
White-fronted Geese (adults of the race albifrons) plus (finally) two
Pink-footed Geese. 10 of the Bean Geese flew in from the east whilst we were
there suggesting they are using another feeding site. It will be very
interesting to see the next plots from the GPS tagged birds to see where they
have been.
There were a number of birds with
neck collars both radio/GPS transmitters and normal rings. I managed to read
the codes on 9 of these including birds I had read in both 2012 and 2013.
Continuing into the valley at
Bjørkelangen there was more flooding than last week but fewer birds with no
Bean Geese this time. Three migrating Buzzards were a welcome site and the
first Teal (13 of them) were also a sign of things to come.
At home in the evening I had my
first moth of the year and on Sunday I saw my first coltsfoot (hestehov) in
flower.
Photos today were not as good as
I hoped even though the light was great for the first time this year – heat haze
became a problem!
The video starts with
White-fronted Geese amongst Bean Geese, has a glimpse of a Pink-footed in the
middle and at the end you can see two ring collared Bean Geese – one with a
radio/GPS collar and the other with a normal numbered ring.
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| Through heat haze! Two White-fronted Geese with Bean Geese behind |
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| Today's chosen field |
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| neck collared "7P" and some of his mates |
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| in this pictures there are 5 collared birds, 4 of which appear to be radio/GPS collars |
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| some Bean Geese, with "6Z" in the middle |
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| Pink-footed Goose on the right |
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| very hazy picture of the 2 White-fronts |
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