Birds at Islandhhill, Newtownards

Now I am starting day 3 of my birding with Eileen and our first stop was just outside Newtownards at Islandhill on Strangford Lough.  I wanted Eileen to see some of the thousands of Pale bellied Geese that had arrived from Arctic Canada.  Unfortunately the tide was right out, however we walked out onto a causeway to another Island and although the birds were a great distance away, we watched though our telescopes as they feed continuously. 

 

The Brent Goose is also known as Brant.  The spelling 'Brant' is the original one, with Brent being a later folk - etymological idea that is was derived from a classical Greek water bird name brenthos.

I took these 2 photos to show you the causeway we were standing on and the great distance the geese were at.  See them if you can!!

These are the best of the photos for you to see.  Don't worry, I will have more photos as the geese stay with us for quite a while. 

 Brent geese have a highly developed salt gland that

allows them to drink salt water.

They have the shortest tail of any goose.

 A group of geese has many collective nouns, including a

 'cheveron', 'gaggle', 'knot', and 'skein'.

As we were watching the geese, we became aware that some geese had tags on both legs and we spent quite a long time trying to ID them.  We had both telescopes up at full distance and confirmed with each other 2 of the geese and 4 others with the colour of the tags but were just unable to see the letters and numbers.  It was very frustrating as there is lot of research goes into these geese.  When I came home I sent the information on to the relevant person and below I thought you would like to see the results.

 

VFry - Ringed on 29th April 2009 in a field about 10 minutes S of Reykjavik, Iceland. At that time an adult female with 2 young.

In Ireland we've seen this bird approximately 30 times in the period. The last record I have was in September 2011 at Strangford. In Iceland we've seen it at a location where 5-7000 birds spend a month or so in springtime, that's approx 1 hour drive N of Reykjavik.

Use of Strangford seems restricted to autumn passage and based on multiple observations in mid and late winter (2009/10 and 2010/11 winters) the bird seems to use the south Wexford coast as its wintering location - Bannow Bay and surrounds.

V9wb - Quite different, this is a bird we ringed in Castlemaine, Co. Kerry in March 2009. An adult male. Up to spring 2011 we've seen this bird 25-30 times. The emerging pattern for the movements of this bird seems to suggest that it uses L Foyle or Strangford on autumn passage and has generally disappeared until early spring when in two years running at the bird has moved north it has used Dundrum Bay (Co. Down) Feb / April. We've also seen it in western Iceland in spring (using the same area as the bird above N of Reykjavik)

This is the only one tagged goose I could get a photos of although not a very good photo.  I find the details regarding these geese is amazing and it certainly will want me to try and see and spot more geese with tags.

When I have time, (probably on some Saturday post) I will show you previous photos of the Pale bellied Brent, giving you some information on them, how they tag them, where they go after leaving Ireland, where they nest and about the rearing of their young.  Well now that I think about this, it may take more than 1 post!!!  We shall see.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed this post and perhaps it has wet your appeitite to hear more about these wonderful geese. 

Just before I finsih, I will leave you with a short video taken that day.

It can be accessed at

http://youtu.be/gy1rCSHuJCk

There was a lot of wind both for taking stills and video and it might be difficult hearing what I say on the video.

If there is a black space below,click it and the video will appear.

I hope you enjoyed this post.

Thank you for visiting any of the posts and I appreciate all your comments.