Goose Roost Count at RSPB Loch Lomond

The Scotsman

The Scotsman visits RSPB Loch Lomond to watch the wardens and volunteers count the thousands of Geese on the site.

Transcript

00:00So we're on the south east corner of the loch, we've been here this morning doing a goose roost count

00:06surveying the wintering geese that we get as they're taken off the loch.

00:10So they will spend the night out here on the loch on the water where it's safe from predators

00:15and in the morning they'll all fly off, so this is the opportunity for us to get a good count of them.

00:20We get mainly four different species of goose, so we get the biggest number, we get pink-footed goose,

00:26we also get Canada geese, grey-legged geese, and then we get the Greenland white-fronted goose.

00:31So that's a subspecies of the greater white-fronted goose, that's kind of the most important one to this site,

00:36that informs most of the management of this site, and what we're doing is trying to create better habitat,

00:42better wintering grounds for these white-fronted geese to feed up

00:46so they're ready for their journey back up to Greenland at the end of the winter.

00:49So they sleep on the water, so they're out of the way of stuff like foxes mainly.

00:54Occasionally we get white-tailed eagles in the area, so if you're very lucky you might see one of them.

01:00If a goose is very unlucky, they might see one of them.

01:02All the geese that we get here will have migrated south from Greenland and from Scandinavia.

01:07The main population that we're working with is the white-fronted geese,

01:12so they've come down from Greenland, they spend the winter here,

01:15and we're trying to essentially create good habitat for them to feed,

01:20get the weight back up so they're ready for migration back up north.

01:24The global population of Greenland white-fronted geese is about 16,000.

01:27That number's come down quite significantly over the past few years.

01:32We think that's mostly related to climate change and changes in their breeding grounds up in Greenland.

01:37We get about 1% of the global population spending the winter on the reserve here,

01:42but having little sub-off-group populations like this is really important

01:47in case there's a big outbreak of some kind of disease.

01:51The past five years here, our numbers have been dropping year on year.

01:55This year actually, a bit of good news, is the first year where we've had a slight increase.

02:00I say slight, it's like two birds more, but even the fact that it's stayed pretty stable is good.

02:05We've also, in the past few years, when we've been surveying, not had any juveniles coming through.

02:10So again, I was mentioning their changes in their breeding ground.

02:14We're having a lot of unsuccessful breeding and a lot of juvenile birds

02:18not making the migration from Greenland down to here.

02:21That journey's a bit too long and they're not big and not strong enough yet.

02:24This year, I think up to about nine juveniles seen for the first time in maybe five years,

02:29which is really exciting, so a bit of promising news on the horizon.

02:34Through the winter, we generally get on site about a few thousand pink-footed geese.

02:39So this year we're about 2,000, which is quite low numbers.

02:43I think in the past it's tended to be about 5,000.

02:46That could be a result of bird flu as well.

02:48The white-fronted geese, though, this year we've got a peak count of 165.

02:52When you're talking about pink feet and they're like thousands,

02:55165 seems like quite a small number, but that's 1% of the global population.

03:00So the white-fronts, they come in maybe end of October, start of November.

03:04It can fluctuate a little bit year to year.

03:07We start surveying for them in November and then they'll be away again,

03:10sort of March, April kind of time.

03:12This is a really good place to see osprey.

03:14So we've got quite a lot of osprey nests in the local area.

03:18They're obviously an expanding population in Scotland.

03:21And because the water is so shallow here, it's a really good place for them to fish.

03:25So you can come and sit down at net bay here, sit and watch for an hour,

03:29and you might get lucky and see an osprey catch a fish.

03:31Up the top of the site, we've got a car park.

03:34We've recently introduced a small parking charge.

03:36Parking is £2 for the first hour and £1 for every hour additionally.

03:40If you're a member of the RSPB, that's totally free, though.

03:43We've got about a 45-minute walk down to the loch shore,

03:46through the woods, you get to go over the fen.

03:49We've put in this new trail to link up two different parts of the reserve

03:53a couple of years ago, so it's really opened up the space

03:55and you can access it much more easily.

03:57You can get wheelchairs down, you can get pushchairs down, that kind of thing.

04:00Reserve access is totally free.

04:02There's just the parking charge, but anyone can come by any time.

04:05Once you're in, you can spend as much time here as you want.

04:08There's generally staff on site from about 9 to 5 every day.

04:12Summer and winter, the reserve looks very different.

04:14So winter, we're mainly about the geese and the water birds, that kind of thing.

04:18Coming into the summer, the woodland, I would say, is the highlight.

04:23That's the start. It lights up.

04:25We've got various bits of woodland, different ages,

04:28different sort of coniferous woodland, deciduous woodland,

04:31and all kinds of different beautiful songbirds and stuff like red starts,

04:34tree pippets, wood warblers, some fairly rare stuff

04:37as well as a lot of stuff that you might know, maybe from your local park.

04:41Coming down early morning, it's this beautiful symphony of birdsong,

04:45definitely worth having a look at.

04:47You can come down whenever you want and enjoy the wildlife.

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