18.04.2011 News from Mid-North

2 geese are still in DK and 4 are up here. Today we saw one of our goose (105864) and it is in good condition and has a pair.

Go North!

4 geese are already in Norway

14.04.2011 Geese invasion in Denmark

Here are all the uplinks when our geese were in Denmark. They visited well known feeding areas of pinkies.

Few words about the tags...

We chose 45 g solar Argos/GPS tags by Microwave Telemetry. GPS gives us very precise locations and data can be transmitted through Argos so we can almost track our geese live. Additionally tags are equipped with UHF so we can follow the birds if we are close by. Between 29.03 and 31.05 tags were set to obtain 19 uplinks per day and outside this period - 12 uplinks to save the batteries.  The tags were attached by elastic band so the harness can adjust its shape when the goose is getting/loosing weight.

If you want to get more info about the tag, visit:

http://www.microwavetelemetry.com/bird/solarArgosGPS.cfm

The D-Day

On March 29th more than 20 geese lovers took part in annual goose catch in western Julland, Denmark. 300 geese (approx 50% barnacle geese and 50% pink footed geese) were caught in canon net. Six males were additionally deployed with GPS tags and that is how it all started. Since than we can track our geese and follow them on their way to Svalbard and back.

Setting canon net

Geese in the tents waiting for ringing

A male with GPS tag

Better later than never....

I promised a web where we can all track our pinkies. Blog came as an alternative and a Brent Geese Blog (link under 'More about geese') was a huge inspiration. Although it is 5 months after tagging, I posted all the events so we can have the whole six stories in one place. Enjoy the reading.