On Christmas Eve, something remarkable occurred across many places in the UK. A sudden influx of Russian White-fronted geese from mainland Europe was seen predominantly in the east and south of England, with a few spotted even in Cornwall. By the 27th December, 2545 individual geese had been counted by the team at the bird news site, Birdguides.
I was unaware of this event until, out walking with my collie on New Year’s Day, I came across four geese in a wet field in the Vale of Porlock. Not wanting to disturb them, I kept my distance and took some photos. When I zoomed in on the images, I could make out a distinct white patch behind the bill, indicating that they were White-fronted geese, the first that I had ever seen on Exmoor.
White-fronted geese (Anser albifrons) breed in Siberia, Greenland, Alaska and Canada, journeying south in the winter months. In the UK, two distinct subspecies occur – the Russian or European geese and the Greenland geese. The birds that arrived recently are Russian ones, probably driven here by extreme cold weather sweeping down from NE Europe. The geese are not large birds, being smaller than the common Greylag geese. Their plumage is grey-brown streaked with bars and spots, with a paler breast. They have bright orange legs and a pink bill. Sometimes Lesser White-fronted geese appear in the UK during the winter, but these are small birds, and they sport a distinctive yellow ring around the eyes.
The birds favour grass farmland for feeding, and large flocks of these geese, together with Bewick’s swans, arrive every year from northern Russia to spend the winter at WWT Slimbridge in Gloucestershire, that wonderful bird reserve founded by Sir Peter Scott in 1946. The precise location of our local quartet of geese will remain a secret to leave them undisturbed, but you might find other White-fronted geese around Exmoor and Somerset, as they have recently been seen at Wimbleball and at the RSPB Nature Reserve at Ham Wall.
Text and images: Nigel Hester, Trustee
