Day 198 - Gracious Greylag Geese

Greylag Geese (Anser anser) with two Goslings

Hi all today's Day 198 and, yesterday, I went on a walk at a reservoir called Cod Beck. While we were there, we saw quite a lot of lovely pieces of nature. As it's quite far into Spring some birds will have already laid their eggs, and then they have hatched and the babies are even walking around with the parents. An example of this are Geese. Specifically, Greylag Geese. We just saw a couple of adults and then we glanced to the side and saw quite a large huddle of babies!

Unfortunately, a dog scared them all off before we could get any photos. They were on the water and they eventually came back onto land and we got some pictures both with them on the water, and on land, the best of both worlds. At one point they started to walk on the path right in front of us!

Six Geese a-resting

So, here are the facts:

• They are very picky about where they live. They are resident over the Western side of England and North East England.

• Also they Winter both in South and West Scotland and in East and parts of West Ireland. 

• There are 46,000 breeding pairs in the UK and there are 140,000 wintering birds and 88,000 in Iceland.

• They have a typical lifespan of 8 years! Well, I put an exclamation mark, the oldest lived for 18 years, 8 months and 2 days!

• They usually have an 82cm length and a 164cm wingspan. Also, Males weigh 3.6kg and Females weigh 3kg. This means that they are sexually dimorphic as Males weigh more than Females.

Most of the goslings together in a creche

• They are found in all habitats but mostly in reedbeds. In fact, they are hardly found in the other habitats.

• As you'll probably know by now I have recently added in a new daily bird fact which is the ring size. In this case it's L*

• They usually eat plant material including roots, tubers, shoots and leaves both in water and on land.

Here are some links to some more information:

RSPB - Greylag Geese

BTO Birdfacts - Greylag Geese

Birdlife - Greylag Geese

Hope you enjoyed,

Z.