Last week saw our annual ‘goose round-up’ on the reserve
following a morning of preparation with our ever eager and hardworking
volunteers. The team were busy repairing and refurbishing the ‘corale’ and
catching pen, which has been underwater since last November.
After lunch back
at the NNR base, the team returned in the afternoon for the much anticipated
catch. Once the geese had been located it was merely a waiting game until they
made their way on to the pool, resulting in a respectable catch of 36 Greylags,
(28 goslings, 6 un-ringed adults and 2 re-traps from previous years). All of
the birds were fitted with white colour-rings (engraved with three black
numbers/letters) as part of a joint project with the WWT and Kane Brides. The darvic
rings will hopefully increase the number of sightings of these birds, and help
further understand the movement of Yorkshire’s population – some birds have
been known to undertake a moult migration to the Lake District each year.
Many thanks for everyone’s efforts throughout the day and
for helping to support our scientific research work, it was also great to
welcome several younger ‘trainees’ to get some waterfowl ringing experience as
well. As always we couldn’t do it without the team, so a big thank you to
everyone who has helped out and contributed to a total of nearly 1000 Greylag
Geese ringed on the reserve since 1990, with recoveries from a range of sites
in East/North Yorkshire, Cumbria, Scotland and as far away as Iceland.
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