One of, if not, our most widespread geese in the UK

Greylag geese are present at TLNR in numbers, whilst not my favourite birds I must admit that it is quite a spectacle as they leave at dusk for their overnight roost and the noise of their calls is very much evocative of winter to my ears.

Asleep on its feet .........

This Greylag Goose was having a mid-day snooze, clearly no concern about potential predators.

Canada Geese ..... not a particular favourite of mine .......

Love them or hate them they are everywhere ......

Loud and very much in your face no matter whether you live in an urban or rural  area they are around and about.

So, what do they contribute ........ fertiliser in great quantities for grasslands, try as I do I cannot think of a reason for their presence.

I am always open to being enlightened so please leave comments, it may be that their grass consumption and fertilising capacity of land with cultivation potential is what its all about !.  

Greylag Geese .....

As regular visitors to my blog know, lately, I have been observing the Titchmarsh Starling murmuration on a regular basis.

A precursor to the arrival of the Starlings is the movement of the large resident flocks of Greylag geese as they leave the reserve for their overnight grazing.

The noise that they make as they take off and pass overhead with their cackling and honking is quite deafening, I say pass overhead but the reality is that on many occasions they are barely ten to twenty feet above the ground as they jostle for position to form their skeins.

Growing population at Titchmarsh .................

The Greylag goose population at Titchmarsh is I think currently the biggest since I started observing the reserve on a regular basis,  breeding is also now commonplace.

The flocks are quite mobile moving between the gravel pits and surrounding fields with some frequency.

The other evening I was out looking for Barn Owls, the early evening sky was cloudless,  sadly no Owls but it was good to see flocks of these geese coming in to roost in the fading light.

They always announce their arrival as their '' honking '' can be heard from a long way off gradually rising to a crescendo as they pass over head, quite a sound and quite a sight.

Goose at Pitsford Reservoir

This is a fantastic specimen of a Goose, the image was taken at Pitsford Reservoir, clearly the question of colour does not contribute to my statement ..... or does it ?

The pure clinical white colour of its plumage is, to me, magical in its simplicity. 

But what really attracted me to this bird was the intensity of its pale blue eyes which I have cropped heavily in the image below.

So, apart from the imposing physical presence of this bird it is the composition of three colours that draws me to it, white, pale blue and the orange of its eye ring, bill and webbed feet, three elements that pull the visual impact of the bird together IMHO.    

What an imposing bird.