I was out onto the moss to do a quick check of the boardwalk and tower. The thaw had started, a little but the track and parts of the path and car park were like polished glass. Bambi impressions were the name of the day. The bog itself was rock hard, as hard as I have ever seen it in nearly 10 years working on Flanders. However every so often the surface gives and the liquid peat bubbles up. The Moss was very quiet, just a mistaken great tit calling like it was spring and a couple of nosy ravens going about their nefarious business diverted to check out what I was doing. I then realised why it was so quiet. Where had all the geese gone ? I realised that the usual background of goose noise and movements had ceased. It made sense really, with the snow and ice there was no food for them and no safe water to roost on at night. So they must have up sticks and headed south or to the coast. In fact the Carse of Stirling and the Lake of Menteith and really a stopping off point rather than a major wintering place. In October pink footed geese arrive from Iceland and congregate at certain points before dispersing. Dupplin Loch near Auchterader is one such place where up to 50000 geese roost in October. They spread out during the day and many feed on the stubble fields of the Carse at that time of the year. Having filled up they mainly move south the parts of England for the winter. It is known from marking birds on legs and necks that some pink feet moved a lot in the winter from place to place looking for food. Stubble fields, potatoes field and winter cereals nowadays have mostly replaced the original inter feeding on salt marshes. However some birds stay on the Carse for the whole of the winter and again from ringing of birds it is known that these birds return and winter on the Carse each year using the same fields every winter. By March we will be seeing more geese on the Carse as the ones that wintered south start moving north, this time feeding on the short sheep grazed grass. driving away from the Moss heading back to the office I came across a small party of pinkies grazing a field away from the road, the first for a couple of weeks. They have moved back north or in from the coast when the slight rise in temperature revealed some grass.
I was out onto the moss to do a quick check of the boardwalk and tower. The thaw had started, a little but the track and parts of the path and car park were like polished glass. Bambi impressions were the name of the day. The bog itself was rock hard, as hard as I have ever seen it in nearly 10 years working on Flanders. However every so often the surface gives and the liquid peat bubbles up. The Moss was very quiet, just a mistaken great tit calling like it was spring and a couple of nosy ravens going about their nefarious business diverted to check out what I was doing. I then realised why it was so quiet. Where had all the geese gone ? I realised that the usual background of goose noise and movements had ceased. It made sense really, with the snow and ice there was no food for them and no safe water to roost on at night. So they must have up sticks and headed south or to the coast. In fact the Carse of Stirling and the Lake of Menteith and really a stopping off point rather than a major wintering place. In October pink footed geese arrive from Iceland and congregate at certain points before dispersing. Dupplin Loch near Auchterader is one such place where up to 50000 geese roost in October. They spread out during the day and many feed on the stubble fields of the Carse at that time of the year. Having filled up they mainly move south the parts of England for the winter. It is known from marking birds on legs and necks that some pink feet moved a lot in the winter from place to place looking for food. Stubble fields, potatoes field and winter cereals nowadays have mostly replaced the original inter feeding on salt marshes. However some birds stay on the Carse for the whole of the winter and again from ringing of birds it is known that these birds return and winter on the Carse each year using the same fields every winter. By March we will be seeing more geese on the Carse as the ones that wintered south start moving north, this time feeding on the short sheep grazed grass. driving away from the Moss heading back to the office I came across a small party of pinkies grazing a field away from the road, the first for a couple of weeks. They have moved back north or in from the coast when the slight rise in temperature revealed some grass.
