From Svalbard to the Solway Firth
Barnacle Geese (Branta leucopsis) Last month I wrote about the Whooper Swans that migrate from the Iceland to the UK every winter with a good number of these beautiful birds coming to take advantage of the rich feeding on the merse and farmland around the Solway Firth. About the same time that the swans visit there is usually a significant number of geese. Perhaps the most famous to be seen around the Caerlaverock Nature Reserve on the Solway Firth are the huge numbers of Barnacle geese that overwinter here. Barnacle Goose in its natural wetland habitat Typically, there can be as many as 30,000 of these birds in the area during the winter months and that's an astonishing number considering the fact that the Barnacle population was down to some 300 or so birds in the period immediately after WWII. So what has brought about this incredible increase in numbers? The answer is quite simply good conservation and land management skills. Prior to WWII the shooting of du...