Geese geese geese!

WWT Quill Article:

It has been a busy couple of months for me assisting on a range of projects in the species research unit! I began my internship back in January and have since been busy observing geese, mapping migration routes, testing bird song recording devices, writing literature reviews and observing cranes.

One of the main projects I have been working on is the ground-truthing of red-breasted goose (RBG) accelerometer data. Nineteen accelerometer tags have been attached to RBG in Bulgaria with the aim of better understanding time energy budgets in response to factors such as hunting disturbance and land use changes. The accelerometers record movements along three axes, and when matched against video footage of different behaviours, we can assign accelerometer data to behaviours without direct observations of the geese. From filming captive, accelerometer tagged RBG at Slimbridge we can use predictive modelling to determine how much time RBG are spending feeding, roosting, walking and being vigilant in the wild, giving new and detailed insights into their behaviour and responses to certain pressures.

I have also been mapping the movements of these 19 tagged individuals at their wintering grounds in Bulgaria to determine daily distances travelled and to identify important areas for feeding and roosting. Satellite tags on three individuals has allowed further mapping of their migration routes up to Russia. One of the tagged individuals managed to get to the breeding grounds, back to the wintering grounds and half way to Russia again before signalling ended! More recent goose research has involved assisting researchers from the University of Exeter in testing new GPS collars for light bellied brent geese.

I have been recording time budgets for collared and un-collared individuals to quantify short term impacts of collars on the birds, and to optimise the collar design before they are deployed on wild individuals. Once deemed safe, these collars will be a great lightweight method of tracking the migrations of brents from Ireland to the Canadian high arctic, will help determine how individuals manage trade-offs between years, how these trade-offs influence survival and productivity, and help with conservation issues such as mitigating conflict between birds and farmers on wintering grounds.