Barnacle Geese on Kolguev Island 65
©Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust
Wildfowl
(2013) 63: 56–71
now concentrate in large numbers in the
centre of the island (Kondratyev
et al.
2012).
Groups of 50–100 non-breeding Barnacle
Geese are regularly observed along the river
bluffs in the vicinity of each of the breeding
colonies (several hundred metres from the
nesting pairs) from the start of the
incubation period, and these are augmented
by new flocks of 20–40 individuals which
continue to arrive, moving upstream from
the Peschanka River delta. By the start of
moulting period, during 4–10 July, flocks
of > 400–600 individuals occur around
some of the colonies, with the biggest
concentrations of non-breeders seen mostly
on the Peschanka River, under the colonies
on its slopes. The largest group of non-
breeding Barnacle Geese counted in the
upper and middle reaches of the Peschanka
River, seen on 24 July 2007, was of 1,935
individuals in a single flock (Table 4). In
other seasons the flock sizes were smaller,
but moulting groups of > 500 birds were
observed near Peregrine Falcon eyries in the
upper and middle reaches of Peschanka and
some other rivers each year. Such large
Figure 2.
Barnacle Goose nest distribution pattern in the upper reaches of the Peschanka River. Colony
abbreviations correspond with those on Fig. 1 and Table 2.
