Two lesser Lesser White-fronted Geese

On Saturday a pair of Lesser White-fronted Geese were found at Nordre Øyeren. I am a man who loves a wild goose chase and LWfG is an even more special species than Taiga Bean Goose with it being the rarest species in Europe (excluding Russia) and the last wild birds follow very well established migration routes from their breeding sites in the far north of Norway to wintering sites in Greece. I should therefore have been out of the door in a heartbeat, but the key word is wild and unfortunately these were never going to be from the proper wild geese (population ca.100 in Europe).

Even though no signs of captivity were seen at the time (they were swimming) it was pretty straight forward to assume they were birds from the Swedish reintroduction program, and this was confirmed the next day when both birds were seen to be wearing plastic coloured bling.

Now, these released geese are a very sore point in Norway but feted as a success story in Sweden. I have previously written a post about this in 2015 and Birdlife Norway have also summed up its view of the status of the reintroductions in this document from 2016. For an opposing viewpoint here is a link to the home page of the Swedish reintroduction project.

In Norway the Swedish birds in addition to being considered an existential risk to the remaining wild birds are considered to be non self-sustaining released and therefore should not appear on your lists (and the ringed birds are releases from captivity so are therefore regarded as category E) whereas no such qualms appear to exist in Sweden.

I am lucky enough to have seen the last remaining European wild birds in Finnmark in 2011 but have not seen any, of any status, since then so had nothing against going for a look this morning. As they hadn’t been reported for a few days I also had the (wild) goose chase experience to look forward to. In the end I easily found a distant large flock of Greylags from the car and in the scope picked out two smaller birds with white fronts. I was able to get a bit closer and get some footage but the Greylags were the most skittish flock I have ever encountered of this species so I had to content myself with views at a distance of 500 metres.

It should also be pointed out that the architect of the Swedish reintroduction program was Lambart von Essen who also stood back the release of (Taiga) Bean Geese in Dalarna which to some (a great?) extent are the likely forefathers of the «Scottish» Taiga Beans. Genetic analysis of these birds would, I think, make for an interesting study.

discovering the Lesser White-fronted Geese (dverggås) at about a kilometres range

I managed to cut the distance to 500m but the flock was surprisingly skittish and I didn't dare go any closer

the gander to the left had a slightly large white "front"

here a yellow colour ring can be seen on the right leg of the female. The video shows the colour rings better

 

4 species

documenting the geese at 500m range

my first Great White Egret (egretthegre) of the autumn. They have come later and in fewer numbers this year than the last couple of years

a flock of Pintail (stjertand)