Pink-footed geese in flight Southport, Lancashire. UK Weather; 03 Oct 2021 Turbulent cumulus clouds at dawn accompanied by heavy showers and a rainbow as migratory pink-footed geese take to the air to feed in the arable farmland on post-harvest cereal stubbles, sugar beet tops and winter wheat crops. In the 1960s, only 50,000 birds wintered in the UK - now there are more than 200,000. Credit; MediaWorldImages/AlamyLiveNews
The pink-footed goose breeds in eastern Greenland, Iceland and Svalbard. It is migratory, wintering in northwest Europe, especially Ireland, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and western Denmark. The name is often abbreviated in colloquial usage to "pinkfoot". The Greenland and Iceland population winter in Great Britain. Populations have risen spectacularly over the last 50 years, due largely to increased protection from shooting on the wintering grounds. Numbers wintering in Ireland and Great Britain have risen almost tenfold from 30,000 in 1950 to 292,000 in October 2004. The numbers wintering in Denmark and the Netherlands have also risen, with about 34,000 in 1993. The most important single breeding site, at Þjórsárver in Iceland (holding 10,700 pairs in 1970), was only discovered in 1951, by Sir Peter Scott and his team who made an expedition to seek the breeding grounds.
Size: 4750px × 3167px
Location: Southport, UK
Photo credit: © MediaWorldImages / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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