News

Mon, 11/03/2024 - 10:32am
In the second half of 2024, geese.org will cease to exist as a separate platform to submit observations of colour-marked swans and geese. From then onwards, you can enter these observations in submit.cr-birding.org, a platform that already hosts more than 80 colour-marking projects, ranging from greenfinches to white-tailed eagles. A team of geese.org and cr-birding org managers and programmers has already started the necessary changes to...
Tue, 02/03/2021 - 11:46am
A colour-ringed barnacle goose from the resident population in the Netherlands was recently observed and photographed in Henan Province, Eastern China. This constitutes the first ringing record of barnacle goose in China, where it is a rare species. According to the local birder community, the bird had already been around at the site near the Yellow river in Henan Province for a few weeks during December 2020 with a large flock of Bean Goose...
Thu, 19/09/2019 - 9:21am
The two main goals of the 2019 expedition to Kolguev have both been reached. Of the 76 long-tailed ducks that were fitted with geolocatiors on Kolguev in 2017 and 2018, no less than 44 were retrappen in August 2019. In the 100 km2 study area 44 ducks were found in August, and they were all retrapped! One of the expedition members remarked: “Given all the really bad weather we had, this was a smashing success...
Tue, 09/07/2019 - 5:54pm
The Goose Specialist Group will hold its 19th conference in Leeuwarden, in the province of Friesland in The Netherlands, from 28-31 January 2020. The Netherlands is one of the most important countries for migratory geese in Europe. And within the country, about 40% of wintering numbers concentrate in Friesland. Its vicinity to the Wadden Sea area, vast grassland areas and numerous wetlands which provide suitable roosts, make the province highly...
Mon, 17/09/2018 - 11:05am
In 2018, in Svalbard and Finland, Pink-footed Geese were equipped with GPS-GSM neckband transmitters to track them year-round and to learn more about the breeding and migration of these geese. If you see a tagged goose in the field, we would like to know if it has a partner and young. You can report this directly to k.schreven@nioo.knaw.nl or via www.geese.org. In the past summer, an expedition by Danish, Dutch and Norwegian scientists went to...
Fri, 24/11/2017 - 9:19am
Aan het eind van het winterganzenseizoen 2016/2017 zijn op 10 mei jl. door Gerard Muskens c.s. met het kanonnet 23 Rotganzen op Terschelling  gevangen en geringd. Veertien rotjes kregen de al langer in gebruik zijnde rood-zwart (R.N.) ringen. Negen exemplaren zijn geringd met de nieuwe kleurringcombinatie lime-groen (L.G.). Omdat de aanwezige kleine groep rotjes op één dier na in zijn geheel werd  gevangen, is het aannemelijk dat het 8...
Mon, 23/01/2017 - 11:49am
British researcher Carl Mitchell detected the Pink-footed Goose male O23 white on 2 november 2016 near Udale Bay in Scotland in a large group of pinkfoots. To our knowlegde, this is the first record of a Pink-footed Goosed ringed in Spitsbergen that joined the Icelandic pinkfoots which winter in the United Kingdom.   Pinkfoot O23 was ringed as an adult in Denmark in March 2011. The next month the bird, surely heading for Spitsbergen,...
Mon, 28/11/2016 - 1:57pm
Since some time there is a new app for mobile phone that is able to enter observations of colour rings of geese and swans (and other species of birds) while in the field. This new Bird Ring App is created by Mario Huizinga in close collaboration with Alterra and Sovon. The Bird Ring app is downloadable to your (Android) phone via Google Play Store or see http://birdring.nl/. After entering the data of the colour ringed bird in the field a push...
Thu, 03/11/2016 - 10:31am
An international expedition team, with amongst others goose researchers Helmut Kruckenberg and Gerard Müskens, visited the island of Kolguyev in the Barents Sea in August 2016. They fitted 18 white-fronted geese with white GPS-neckbands with a black 2-digit code. Three of these ‘white white-fronts’ have been observed in the Netherlands, while two others were seen in Germany. Remarkably, the first observation of one of these birds was actually...
Thu, 10/03/2016 - 9:08am
Today (9 March 2016) all ringing data of the Swedish LWfG- project were added on the geese.org website. This means that all observations of legrings of LWfG should now be linked to ringing data. On http://www.geese.org/Ganzen/index.jsp, ‘how to report’ you can find how to report the different colour rings properly in geese.org.
Mon, 21/12/2015 - 2:09pm
The goose catcher Harry van Kessel coordinated the capture and collaring of 21 Greater White-fronted Geese last week. These included 15 adults and six juveniles. Fred Cottaar and Jan Vegelin took on the measuring and ringing. Harry is celebrating the 100th anniversary of goose catching by him and his family. The Greater White-fronted Geese caught last Friday (18-12-2015) were fitted with collars in the series PR .., PS.., PT ... Below some...
Wed, 24/06/2015 - 10:20am
The barnacle goose population wintering in western Europe has increased markedly during the past decades. They also stay much longer on the wintering grounds in spring. Barnacle geese breeding in Arctic Russia may stay in the Netherlands and Germany up to mid May, before flying almost non-stop to their norther breeding grounds. Howver, there are also individuals that leave much earlier, and use stopoer sites in the baltic area before oving...
Tue, 23/07/2013 - 10:05am
Until 2013 many have wondered what the origin is of the ever increasing numbers of moulting ruddy shelducks on the Eemmeer in the Netherlands. During recent years up to 800 birds were present. Other areas (IJsselmonding and Lauwersmeer) have also seen increasing numbers of moulting ruddy shelducks. The origin of these birds is unknown. It was always assumed that they were escaped birds from private waterfowl collections and their offspring...