Lesser White-fronted Geese in Gloucestershire, Kent and Yorkshire have been drawing crowds this winter, however the odds are in opposition to them being thought-about wild birds by the data committees.
One arrived at Oare Marshes, Kent, on 15 December 2023. Aged as an grownup by its white brow, darkish stomach markings and square-tipped upperpart feathers, it went on to commute between the reserve and Shellness, on the Isle of Sheppey.
Another grownup Lesser White-fronted Goose turned up at Adwick Washlands RSPB, South Yorkshire, on 19 January.
These studies observe sightings of an grownup on the species’ former British hot-spot at Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, since October 2023. This is taken into account prone to have been the identical escaped hen famous with Canada Geese in Wiltshire almost a month beforehand.
Like the Yorkshire hen, the Lesser White-fronted Goose in Kent has been persistently within the firm of Greylags (Alex Perry).
Although probably the most recent birds are unringed and absolutely winged, their affiliation with naturalised Greylag Geese immediately dampens their possibilities in terms of evaluation by the British Birds Rarities Committee (BBRC). Being adults will not be in opposition to them, as young geese normally accompany skilled dad and mom on their first migration and vagrancy of grownup geese has lengthy been accepted, with lone older birds routinely getting caught up in migrating flocks of different species and strong proof of the phenomenon by means of ring-reading.
With a number of escaped Lesser White-fronts identified to be current in Britain for various years, reasonable candidates for acceptance as wild birds are prone to be these tied to flocks of anticipated service species. In the previous, apparently wild people have arrived with flocks of Russian White-fronted Geese and Taiga Bean Geese. These birds can have migrated from areas the place wild Lesser White-fronted Geese, or these from reintroduction tasks in Fennoscandia, might have joined them and continued to Britain of their firm.
A widely known grownup already assessed by BBRC and placed on Category E (which homes data of obvious escapes) adopted Pink-footed Geese between Yorkshire, Lancashire and Norfolk between 2019 and March 2023.
While Pink-feet certain for Iceland and Greenland will not be probably the most inspiring service species for wild Lesser White-fronted Geese, BBRC has accepted people travelling with this species earlier than. It was the truth that the individual oversummered with naturalised Greylags in Yorkshire that doomed it to Category E.
Poor winter for wild geese
Not serving to the case of probably the most recent Lesser White-fronts, winter 2023-24 has been a typically disappointing one for wild geese, with no fierce chilly snaps driving herds from the Continent. Numbers of Russian White-fronted Geese have been unremarkable throughout the board and Tundra Bean Goose has been stubbornly scarce, whereas Taiga Beans proceed their regular decline on the two conventional wintering grounds. Only two Taigas made a quick look in east Norfolk in December, the place the previously important Yare Valley inhabitants hosted a Lesser White-fronted Goose within the winters of 2010-11 and 2011-12.
Once a daily tag-along with Russian White-fronted Geese in Britain and the near-Continent, data of acceptable Lesser White-fronts have sharply declined. The species was a frequent fixture with the big flocks of Russian White-fronts at Slimbridge till the late Nineteen Nineties. However, solely 5 apparently wild birds are on the nationwide file books for this century, probably the most recent being a first-winter at Burgh-by-Sands, Cumbria, with Pink-footed Geese on 8 January 2019.
In the corporate of naturalised geese in a largely delicate winter, it’s unlikely that any of the present birds, all nonetheless current in late January, will persuade BBRC that they’re of untamed origin.
