News
Dear Ringreaders
Here we keep you up-to-date with the development of this website under construction. The latest news can be found first.
News 8 October 2013
Please quickly enter sightings of Greater White-fronted Geese with white neckbands!
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In the summer of 2013 on Kolguyev Island in Russia 70 young white-fronted geese and their parents have been marked with white neckbands with three digits. Integrated with these neckbands are GPS loggers to study how goose families migrate from Russia to the Netherlands/Germany. The GPS data has to be downloaded with a special radio antenna from a distance of a few hundred metres from the geese. In order to locate quickly the marked geese this winter, we ask for your help to enter any resightings of those white neckbands as soon as possible! Each entry to geese.org will immediately be forwarded to the researcher in charge, Dr. Andrea Kölzsch (Max Planck Institut Radolfzell, Germany).
News 16 August 2012
Pink-footed geese enjoy good breeding succes on Svalbard Pink-footed geese have been neckbanded in 2012 in Denmark (March) and Svalbard (August).
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| Pink-footed goose WF 2 (white legring with F2), born in 2012. |
During the spring of 2012 we attemted to catch pinkfeets, as usual, in the Vest Stadil Fjord in Denmark. Unfortunately, the numbers caught where low (39 pink-footed geese were fitted with white neckbands). This was, among other things, due to the large and still increasing number of barnacle geese that are present in the area during recent years. We are on the lookout for an alternative catching site, since we have planned to neckband several hundreds of pinkfeets during the next few years. Moreover, an international team led by Jesper Madsen caught and ringed pinkfeet on Svalbard this year. In the beginning of August they caught in total 350 birds, of which half where juveniles, at three different sites (Sassendalen, Skansen and Daudmannsodden). The adult birds were fitted with a metal ring and a white neckband. Juveniles were too small to be neckbanded and received a white legring in addition to their metal ring. The white legrings are engraved with a two-digit code, read downwards, consisting of a letter and number, two letters, or two numbers.
Fred Cottaar (fred.cottaar@tiscali.nl )
News 6 January 2011
News about neck-banded Whooper Swans (Cygnus Cygnus), Wilde Zwaan, Singschwan, SangsvanedIn 2003 ringing program of Whooper Swans started in Latvia. At this moment the number of collar-ringed birds is about 730. Most of these birds are caught as cygnets or breeders in breeding grounds or in moulting grounds. Most of the Whooper Swans in Latvia have been ringed in the western part of Latvia as 80% of Latvian breeding population is concentrated there.
In Latvia we have been using blue neck collars with codes: 1C00-1C99, 2C00-2C99, 3C00-3C99, 4C00-4C99, 6C00-6C99, 0E00-0E99, 1E00-1E99, 2E00-2E99, 3E00-3E99, 4E00-4E99, 5E00-5E99. Please submit such observations to www.geese.org
There are also other Whooper Swan ringing projects in Europe that do not (yet) cooperate with the website ww.geese.org (therefore you will not see ringing information of such birds through www.geese.org):
Blue neck collars with codes 7C00-7C99, 2H00-2H99, 3H00-3H99, 4H00-4H99 are used in Lithuania. Please send information about these birds directly to Julius Morkunas - juliusmorkunas@gmail.com
Yellow neck collars with codes 1R00-1R99, 3R00-3R99, 0T00-0T99 are used in Poland. Please send information about these birds directly to Maria Wieloch - mwieloch@miiz.waw.pl
Yellow neck collars with codes 2R00-2R99, 4R00-4R99, 5R00-5R99, 6R00-6R99, 7R00-7R99 are used in Germany. Please send information about these birds directly to Axel Degen – Axel.Degen@t-online.de
General information about other Whooper Swan colour ringing projects can also be found on: www.cr-birding.be
Dmitrijs Boiko
News 18 October 2010
Ringing programme of Bewick’s Swans runs in the NetherlandsSince December 2005 a new ringing programme of Bewick’s Swans runs in the Netherlands. Part of the birds is equipped with yellow collars with built-in GPS loggers (see picture). These loggers regularly record geographical locations of these birds. This should yield information about their habitat use in winter, and how this carries over to their performance during spring migration and in the breeding season. The logged data can be downloaded from a couple of 100 m with a special receiver. The researchers therefore look forward to resightings which enables them to go and look for the birds, and download the GPS data. The observations can be entered in the usual way into www.geese.org.
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| Bewick’s Swans with GPS collar (Photo Colin Butter) |
News September 29 2010
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| Brent Goose RHNH (left leg red HHH; right leg black HHH) prior to release. Terschelling May 2010. Picture: Gerard Muskens |
Now also Brent with black legrings.
The first Brent have returned from the arctic and been spotted in the Wadden Sea and in England. Last spring in May also black legrings have been used to mark Brent Geese on Terschelling (NL).
Black legrings should be coded as N, thus a Brent with red HHH on the left leg and black 111 on the right should be entered as RHN1
News June 15 2010
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| Greylag Goose bearing a white neckband 3-27, to be entered as "327 (white neckband)" with logger |
Since June 2010, 25 Dutch Greylag Geese have been equipped with GPS loggers mounted on white neckbands. On these neckbands you will see engravings in black to identify the individual (e.g. 3-27) and bulges on either side in which the logger and batteries are located (see picture). Data from the loggers can be downloaded from a distance of up to c. 200 m. The scientists are therefore awaiting anxiously any resightings of these geese and can then go there to download the whereabouts of these geese. Resightings can be reported through this website www.geese.org.
News April 8 2008
Dear users
As you probably noticed we have release a new version of this site. Most of the changes have been made to the database but some of those changes effect the website or its behaviour also. We tested it thoroughly but of course its always possible we mis something. If you find any errors, performance problems or anything please contact us at by email
News 14 August 2007
Dear Goose ring- or neckbandreader,
A new version of our website has just been completed, and we are happy to introduce it now to you.
Soon the geese will return and then you can enter your sightings using the new facilities.
You can indicate where you have seen your geese using google-maps (do not forget to allow pop-ups, otherwise the map will not show up) . A new feature here is, that if you now the lat-long coordinates of the place where you saw the geese, then you can enter these, click on <move to> and the cursor will go there. Then you can zoom in, and adjust the position to exactly where you have seen the geese. Then you have to confirm this position and it will be stored in the database. For most European countries immediately country and within each country the name of the relevant region (Bundesland, province, Département or County (not yet available) will be shown and listed as well.
You can enter new data, but also view your old observations (under My geese), and if you detect errors in the way your old sightings have been stored, please coorect such errors using the <edit> possibility (at the right end of each line). There you can also generate reports with all sightings of that particular goose.
In case of questions, please first take a look at FAQ (frequent asked questions), but if FAQ does not help you out, do not hesitate to contact us at goose.alterra@wur.nl
For observers in Britain this website deals with Dark-Bellied Brent Geese and Russian Greater White-fronted Geese, but would you watch geese in continental Europe also observations of marked Greylag Geese, Bean Geese and Russian Barnacle Geese can be entered.
We wish you all a very good goose season!
Bart Ebbinge, Nicole Feige, Henk van der Jeugd, Thomas Heinicke, Helmut Kruckenberg, Dennis Lammertsma, Gerard Müskens, Yke van Randen, Ralph Smits, Onno Roosenschoon and Berend Voslamber
News 2 October 2006
In December 2005 we have launched a Dutch version of this special website for ring- and neckband readers. The focus of
this website is on marked geese, and now 4 species-co-ordinators have joined this project. The main reason for starting
it, is the huge backlog we have in data entry, because of the overwhelming enthusiasm of dedicated ringreaders.
Now we are running an English test version which we hope to launch officially in November 2006.
The main idea is that individual observers enter and update their own data, and can immediately see where the bird they
have observed has been ringed. Moreover all other sightings of that bird can be viewed and plotted on a map. We use
google-maps which allows you to zoom in and out, and choose whether you would like to have satellite images or a street
map as background, or both (if you click on hybrid).
All historical data for Continental Barnacle Geese (co-ordinated by Henk van der Jeugd), Greater White-fronted Geese
(co-ordinated jointly by Helmut Kruckenberg and Bart Ebbinge), Bean Geese (Co-ordinated by Thomas Heinicke), and
Dark-bellied Brent Geese (co-ordinated by Bart Ebbinge) are stored in our database, which currently holds about
500,000 sightings.
We are currently working on further procedures to report back to all individual observers, and welcome any suggestions
to improve this site.
Bart Ebbinge, Henk van der Jeugd, Thomas Heinicke, Helmut Kruckenberg, Dennis Lammertsma, Yke van Randen en Onno Roosenschoon.