First Geese Arrive on Islay

On Wednesday 30 September Ian Brooke wrote the following entry on his blog: "James's count for today tallied through at 6,695 Barnacle Geese, 185 Pale bellied Brent Geese, 1 Canada Goose hutchinsii sp, 4 Pink footed Geese & 5 Greenland Whitefronted Geese. Most of the Geese arrived this afternoon, rather than in the morning." This means that the annual geese migration has started and in the next weeks many more geese will arrive on Islay with Loch Gruinart being their first port of call. Last year most of the Geese arrived on the 5th of October and it looks like this year they are a wee bit earlier. The annual migration of the geese is, from a birding point of view, Islay's biggest returning event and to remind you how wonderful it is I have included a video I took last year in October. Enjoy!

Tag: geese birding nature migration