Trevor Gunton
The December speaker was Trevor Gunton, previous long-term employee of RSPB, and now enjoying his "retirement" as RSPB volunteer, free-lance consultant, course lecturer, bird recorder at Paxton Pits reserve in Cambridgeshire, and leading authority on Vikings. This evening?s talk covered all species of geese that are regular winter visitors to the UK in substantial numbers. All population sizes, breeding and wintering, refer to individuals and not pairs.
The Pink-footed Goose gave Trevor his first goose experiences when they wintered in the area south of the Humber that has now become the Blacktoft Sands RSPB reserve. In the 1950s and 1960s there were quite large numbers in the fields there but now there are only ever a few hundred, using the area as a staging post as they make their way south. The world population of Pink Feet numbers about 300,000, of which about 85% winter in the UK. Most of the UK birds come from Iceland and north-east Greenland, and winter in south and south-east Scotland, north-west England, and north Norfolk; they feed mainly on sugar beet tops, carrots and potatoes. The birds are commercially hunted, and it is estimated that 10,000 - 15,000 are killed each year. Nevertheless their population seems to be steadily increasing.
Brent Geese come in two sub-species, namely Dark-bellied and Light-bellied. Dark-bellied breed in western Siberia and some 215,000 winter in coastal Europe, with about 100,000 in the UK. Their UK wintering range is on the Norfolk and Suffolk coasts, and along the English south coast. Light-bellied Brents breed in Spitsbergen and arctic Canada: the Canadian birds number about 25,000, and most winter in Ireland where fields in a south Dublin suburban housing estate have proved to be very popular.
White-fronted Geese are the commonest goose worldwide, numbering over two million individuals. Their breeding range is extensive, and includes Siberia and Greenland. The Siberian birds winter mainly in the Severn and Swale estuaries, whilst the Greenland birds winter in Ireland and western Scotland; between them they number about 25,000. There are sometimes a few Lesser White Fronts in amongst the flocks. |
The Bean Goose is often confused with Pink-footed, but is now recognised as a separate species with a world population of rather less than 300,000, and they breed in northern Scandinavia and Russia. They were formerly common in fenland arable fields in the UK, but are now reduced to just a small group in the Strumpshaw Fen area.
The world population of Barnacle Geese is estimated to be about 430,000 individuals, distributed over Greenland, Spitsbergen and western Siberia. The Spitsbergen ones winter almost exclusively on the Solway, where the population has risen to about 30,000; the reason for the increase is not known but may be due to better conservation in Spitsbergen or less shooting on the Solway. The Greenland birds mostly winter in the Western Isles, with up to 40,000 on Islay. There are a few pairs breeding in the UK, mainly in gravel pits, mixed in with Canada and Greylags.
Since the early 1960s, Trevor has been leading groups to the Netherlands where wintering wildfowl can be found in huge numbers. He has also taken groups to Bulgaria and Romania, again rich in wildfowl. The special attraction for Trevor are the big flocks of Red-breasted Geese which, alas, are not to be found in the UK.
As usual with the World, there are good and bad signs for the future. On the plus side is the Great Fen project which aims to create a vast fenland of about 3,700 hectares in an area between Huntington and Peterborough, and should provide a highly spectacular wildfowl habitat. On the minus side, eastern Europe is likely to undergo much intensification of farming, as the western Europe shows them how (they think) things should be done ...
In addition to telling us about the geese we may see wintering in the UK and Ireland, Trevor also showed many wonderful photographs of the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe where wildfowl gather in spectacular numbers. He was thanked for his most interesting and entertaining talk, and his winter scenes reminded us that there are places that are even colder than we were experiencing on a frosty Sheffield December evening.
Wendy Thomson |
