DIY GOOSE FEST LOCATIONS

Here are three sites at which you could stage your own Goose Fest – each has a variety of wild goose species, plus other wildfowl and a big supporting cast including raptors.

CLEY MARSHES NWT: North Norfolk is blessed with a great variety of wintering geese. Pink-footed and Brent dominate, though, and large skeins of both will be encountered overhead. It’s when these flocks are grounded that there’s the best chance of picking out something rarer, like a Bean Goose or a Black Brant. Visit website: http://bit.ly/2ijikxt

RATTRAY HEAD, ABERDEENSHIRE: A total of 70,000 Pink-footed Geese roost on the neighbouring Loch of Strathbeg RSPB reserve and feed in the fields around Rattray Head. The two sites are also good for other wildfowl, such as Whooper Swans. Raptors will undoubtedly be present. RSPB website: http://bit.ly/2j3ipne

FERRY BRIDGE, PORTLAND, DORSET: Foulness, Essex and Frampton Marsh, Lincolnshire, get superb congregations of dark-bellied birds, whereas Holy Island, Northumberland, and Strangford Loch, Northern Ireland, offer excellent pale-bellied encounters. But Ferry Bridge offers high volumes of confiding dark-bellied Brent Geese, with the flock frequently harbouring Atlantic vagrants, Black Brants.