Over 10,000 barnacle geese still at Caerlaverock on 10th April
The barnacle goose count from the farmhouse tower at Caerlaverock on Tuesday the 10th of April recorded 10,130 geese feeding in the fields and merses around the centre. In summer the barnacle geese breed in the High Arctic on Spitsbergen, the largest island of the archipeligo of Svalbard at 78 degrees north.. The geese usually start to head north from the Solway towards the end of April for the first half of their epic migration north to stage above the Arctic Circle on islands of the north-west coast of Norway. After a few weeks they will set off north again arriving on Spitsbergen as the snows melt at the end of May. Some barnacle geese can still be seen feeding at Caerlaverock well into May.
