Brent Geese in wintery Holland

Here’s a 5 minute snippet of a 20+ minute recording I made of a group of Dark-bellied Brent geese chilling and eating on the mudflats of Schiermonnikoog, a small & remote Dutch island off the North-West coast of the country. Two thirds of this island is a nature reserve, there are no cars & other motorised vehicles allowed except for those who live on the island – the total population is approximately 800 and all live in the one village the island boasts. There only footpaths in the reserve, no roads (not even for cyclists) lead through or around it. All in all a pretty good area for nature sound recordists, although there can still be planes heard flying relatively nearby every 30 minutes or so.

During winter, lots of different types of birds from northern countries such as Greenland and Siberia spend some time here whilst on their flight to Africa. There’s also literally thousands of geese of all sorts of types from Siberia who spend all winter on the island. The recording below is of a group of Brent geese. Other birds that can be heard in the recording include Herring Gull/Lesser Black-backed Gull, Gadwall, Teall, Wigeon, Oystercatcher, Curlew and Greylag.

Bird species kindly identified by David Darrell-Lambert and Serge Le Huitouze.

Geek data: MKH8040/MKH30 in MS, 96khz/24bit, Tascam DR680.

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