Barnacle geese in Lancashire

The current unprecedented influx of Russian white-fronted geese into the UK has grabbed the birding headlines recently, but perhaps overlooked in all of the excitement has been the apparent influx of barnacle geese. A couple of weeks ago I spent nearly a week birding in North Lancashire and in amongst the white-fronts were unusually large numbers of barnacles, with several double figure counts and some flocks of 60 or more. I've also been told of other flocks elsewhere in the UK away from traditional wintering grounds.

Today I stopped at the Wildfowlers pull in on Marine Drive, Southport hoping to see a reported Todd's Canada goose. There were lots of pink-footed geese spread all across the marsh, especially in the taller grasses making picking out any scarcer species quite problematic, yet even so I managed to find five Russian white-fronts. I also spotted lots of barnacle geese in the grass and then a scan across the distant marsh revealed a larger flock of at least 61 birds which are in the composite photo attached. In total I counted at least 75 barnacle geese, but there were probably considerably more. My previous largest count on the Ribble was 32 birds way back in 1993, but that was exceptional for me, more typically I rarely see double figures on the saltmarsh. 

Photo: Barnacle geese
Knowsley Safari Park June 2025.

The problem with these barnacles in Lancashire is that unlike Russian white-fronts, there are sizeable free flying feral populations in the North West. The largest I'm aware of is at Knowsley Safari Park where back in June last year I counted 297 adults with 65 goslings. However, I don't think these birds range in any large numbers much further than the farmland around the safari park, e.g. in 43 years birding at Pennington Flash just 10 miles down the road, I've only ever seen five single barnacles at the site. There are occasional records of odd birds from Knowsley reaching much further afield, such as singles in Oxfordshire and Surrey in 2022, but I very much doubt that the Knowsley population accounts for the large numbers currently being seen in Lancashire. I believe that there is also a much smaller feral population at Blackpool Zoo, but I'm not sure how far these birds move and there are probably not nearly enough birds there to account for the numbers currently being seen. 

Photo: Barnacle goose at Pennington Flash,
ringed at Knowsley Safari Park

An interesting feature of the current influx of barnacles is the fact that so far no marked birds have been seen. Obviously the birds in my photo at the top of this post are far too distant to see any rings, but plenty of others have been much closer. A large proportion of the feral Knowsley flock carry yellow plastic rings put on by the Waterbird Colour Marking Group to monitor the movement of feral geese in the UK and beyond. Whilst a lack of rings or other markings might appear to prove nothing, we would surely expect at least some yellow rings to be seen if they were from the Knowsley population? Likewise, a fair number of birds from Svalbard and Greenland also have colour rings. The population with the least bling is from Novaya Zemlya in arctic Russia.

So taking everything into account, and given that these barnacles appeared at the same time as the influx of Russian white-fronted geese, it seems reasonable to assume that like the white-fronts they are birds which have been displaced for whatever reason from the Netherlands and are not birds from the overwintering Solway population, which breed in Svalbard, or the Hebrides population, which breed in Greenland. Barnacles geese which winter in the Netherlands breed in artic Russia.

It would be great to find some ringed individuals.

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