Flock of birds in the sky at dawn. Sunrise in Burscough, Lancashire. October, 2016. UK Weather. First Migratory Pink Foot Geese arriving from Iceland. Huge flocks of up to 17,000 birds take to the air at dawn to feed on the local farmland. Shortening days and the first flocks of Pink Footed Geese winging their way back to us from Icelandic breeding grounds tell us summer is at an end. Pink-footed Geese have a huge carbon footprint. This is not caused by bodily gas emissions; rather it is caused by their grubbing in Arctic soil for food, which releases carbon from the ground.


During the winter months Pink-footed Geese will forage near farmlands. Due to the flock numbers they can do considerable damage to farm fields. However local governments instigated various pro-geese measures to ensure farmers will not lose winter crops to the birds. These measures mainly involve leaving out harvested beet tops and the like to give the geese an easy target instead of fighting farmers for valuable winter-growing crops or Geese are the most common kind of goose found in Svalbard and Great Britain. They are also the largest kind of Goose to nest in the Netherlands. Because of their size they are able to better protect their young against foxes than other smaller geese, meaning they are free to nest further inland than other the other goose species. There are 2 distinct populations of Pink-footed Geese. The first breeds in Greenland and Iceland and winters in Britain. The second mates in Svalbard and winters in the Netherlands and Denmark. Pink-footed Geese have a huge carbon footprint. This is not caused by bodily gas emissions; rather it is caused by their grubbing in Artic soil for food, which releases carbon from the ground. Other names for Geese flocks include “blizzard”, “knot”, “plump”, “string”, and “chevron”. Pink-footed Geese ranges are huge, estimated to be anywhere between 100,000 and 1,000,000 km2. The scientific name Anser brachyrhynchus breaks down as: Latin anser – goose Greek brakhus – short Greek rhunkhos - bill


Size: 3573px × 2382px
Location: Lancashire, UK.
Photo credit: © MediaWorldImages / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

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