Montrose Basin: How thousands of pink-footed geese herald the arrival of autumn

Each morning as skeins of birds leave the safety of the tidal mudflats, the sound could be mistaken for a “train going past or even the Tour de France” suddenly whizzing by, a Scottish Wildlife Trust ranger said.

And in the evening during the autumn, they will return to the basin after feeding on surrounding fields up to 30 miles away.

They come back in groups of hundreds listening for the characteristic calls of fellow ‘pinkies’, as they are lovingly known, before whiffling down “like autumn falling leaves”.

In a manoeuvre only executed by a few species, the geese will flip their body upside down to lose the lift underneath their wings and rapidly drop in height.

Speaking on the magnificent daily site, ranger Richard Averiss said a colleague used to describe it “as a primitive thing”.

“No matter how many times you see it when you are inside your home and hear the geese flying by, you think ‘I’ve got to go out see these geese’.

“It’s like there is a primitive link to it.

“People will be stopping in the middle of the road, and they see them every day.”

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Ron Mitchell (Image: Ron Mitchell)

The geese migrate from Greenland and Iceland, where they breed, before heading for milder climates as the summer ends – which for them is Scotland and later on England.

The basin offers them safety overnight once the low tide exposes the vast mudflats covering 750 hectares – keeping them out of reach of predators such as foxes.

Their numbers usually peak around the second week of October – with some years seeing almost a fifth of the global population settle in reserve for the autumn.

But the numbers are near impossible to predict, Mr Averiss added: “Loch of Strathbeg used to have 30,000 to 40,000 and now they are getting a maximum of 10,000.

“It’s almost like it is getting overflown to come here and that’s our big worry- that the geese are going to overfly us and go further south.”

A lot of it is down to the winds they can catch to make their upwards of 800-mile journey easier and the global population is doing better than ever.

“They’re actually doubling every 25 years now,” Mr Averiss said. “It’s all because they’ve got an endless supply of food now.

“The basin is always changing. You can actually see the practical side of climate change."

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Pink-footed geese on Montrose Basin, Image by Ron Mitchell (Image: Ron Mitchell)

A nesting raft set up for terns used to see dozens of breeding pairs, yet now barely gets used for nesting as less sand eels, which are fed to the new-born chicks, come to that part of the reserve.

Warmer temperatures are also having an impact on eider feeding on mussels, which used to cover the ground, as the molluscs struggle to survive the heated water.

However, the pink-footed geese are on “the other side of the coin” – rather than their numbers dwindling due to climate change, their numbers have increased significantly in recent years.

“They now have the food and the climate,” Mr Averiss said and explaining the pinkies avoid frosted ground.

Pink-footed geese are grazers – with around six to seven geese covering comparable ground to an adult sheep.

“They feed on the stubble fields at this time year and as soon as the stubble fields are finished, they will move on to potatoes,” the ranger added.

“Once the potatoes are done here the big numbers move off down to Lancashire for the carrots.”

Image by Ron Mitchell (Image: Ron Mitchell)

While most will travel south before the harsher weather hits, up to 10,000 will remain in the basin until April – when they will once again travel to Iceland and Greenland to breed.

And the ones that remain are appreciated by the local community. Joanna Peaker, assistant manager of the local visitor centre, said: “I think in Montrose especially the geese really do feel like the herald of autumn.

“It’s just a constant sound and in the morning, you will see a few skeins going over.

“We do an online goose watch once a year now. The first one was last year, and we had people tuning in who used to live in Montrose and moved south and they said ‘I just wanted to watch because I miss the sound of the geese’.”

The sound itself is unique. Unlike many other geese, the pinkies do not make a honking noise instead making a softer ‘ink-ink’ call.

“Although when there is a cacophony of thousands of them it sounds quite different,” Ms Peaker added.