The Lincolnshire Bird Club

A very poor breeding year for dark bellied brents with 3997 counted and aged in Lincolnshire, only 77 young found
a little under 2%.
regards John.

Count now 5834 of which 117 are birds of the year ( all in Lincs).
regards John.

John,
From your previous observations, what is the average percentage of juveniles over the past years? I appreciate that Brent Geese can live over 20 years but will such a low percentage have a long term effect on the overall population?
Seasons greeting,
Stuart

Hi Stuart, The Wildfowl and Wetlands trust collate all the data and have a web site with
all the data gathered over the past 25 years, (mostly by volunteers.)
Dark bellied brent have a succes cycle linked to the lemming population so when
there are few lemmings brent goose eggs and young are taken by many predators
as an alternative food supply, when a good lemming year fewer are predated.
Succes rates in recent years
2007/8 11 % 08/09 1 % 09/10 5 % 10/11 13% 11/12 16%.

seasons greetings John.

Thanks for that John - I like lemmings and I hope they have a bumper breeding season in 2013!