Greylag Geese staging and wintering in France 35
©Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust
Wildfowl
(2013) 63: 24–39
The West European Greylag Goose
population has increased markedly over
recent decades (Madsen 1987; Nilsson
et al
.
1999; Fox
et al.
2010). In the late 1960s,
Rooth (1971) estimated numbers wintering
in southern Spain at
c
. 25,000 out of a total
population of 30,000 birds. The flyway
population subsequently increased to
c
.
93,000–112,000 birds by the early 1980s
(Madsen 1987), was > 200,000 in 1991
(Nilsson
et al
. 1999) and reached
c
. 610,000
by 2009 (Fox
et al
. 2010). During the early
years, the wintering population of Greylag
Geese in the main wintering area in the
Guadalquivir delta of southern Spain also
increased, but this has since stabilised and
numbers in the main area have decreased in
recent years (Rendon
et al
. 2008). On the
other hand, other areas in northern Spain
were established as wintering areas for
increasing numbers of Greylag Geese, due
to the restoration of a number of wetlands,
the first being Villafafila which soon became
an important wintering area especially for
Norwegian birds (Andersson
et al
. 2001).
Moreover there was a change in the
migration pattern of the Greylag Geese in
Western Europe, resulting in a diminishing
proportion of Greylag Geese from the
Nordic countries migrating to Spain
(Andersson
et al.
2001; Nilsson 2006). New
wintering traditions have been established
Figure 8
. Number of observations per ten-day period (1 = the first ten days in a month, 2 = the next
ten days,
etc
.) of 38 neck-banded Greylag Geese marked in southwest Sweden seen in Spain and France
during the same season.
