Natural Selection

I’ve finally got enough time to do some blogging. I have a few things from during the radio silence I will cover in the next week or so. But I’m starting today on the familiar ground of ringing recoveries and feral geese.

Viewing the River Wyre at Little Singleton this afternoon there was very little to see initially. Looking upriver towards Poolfoot Lane there were a couple of Greylag broods being closely shepherded by their parents. Then the smaller frame of a Barnacle Goose appeared from behind a dip.

I was loosely mulling over the fact that these odd Barnacles outside the winter period are perhaps too easily dismissed as wandering from Blackpool Zoo when a second bird appeared alongside the first one. At this point I thought I must check them for Darvic rings, as birds from the Lake District are now largely marked in this way.

Barnacle Goose from Derwent Water last weekend, showing the blue Darvic ring

I walked closed to the birds and they walked out of cover a little and the first bird was sporting a yellow Darvic ring. I was intrigued, as I was fairly sure that the birds in the Lake District have blue rings or black neck collars.

The ring was clearly readable and the code was P32. I dropped Kane Brides a message and asked if it was one of his. He quickly replied to say it was, and it was soon conveyed that it was from the feral flock at Llangorse Lake, Powys that also moves to Slimbridge WWT reserve in winter.

The life history and sightings ‘heatmap’ follows below.

Interestingly this is the first bird in the Llangorse Lake flock to have been seen away from South Wales and Slimbridge. One can only speculate as to what has prompted it to make this movement, and it would be interesting to know if the other bird also originates from the same site.