Whooper swans & barnacle geese

Whooper swan (Cygnus cygnus), barnacle goose (Branta leucopsis). Solway, Islay, Ouse Washes, United Kingdom.

Best time: 1 Nov – 28 Feb (November to February). Where: WWT Caerlaverock, Dumfries, RSPB Loch Gruinart, Islay, WWT Welney, Ouse Washes (United Kingdom). Time of day: Geese and swans leave the roost in the hour around sunrise and return from an hour before sunset.

• You can go on your own
• Low cost
• Binoculars helpful
• Sound 5/5

Open it in the interactive calendarSunrise and sunset listening times for the day you pick, and the map.

When is the best time?

Peak: 1 Nov – 28 Feb. November to February

Active from 1 Oct to 31 Mar (October to March) in a typical year.

Time of day

Geese and swans leave the roost in the hour around sunrise and return from an hour before sunset; whoopers bugle on the floodlit ponds into the evening (WWT feeds are mid afternoon — check times).

• Dawn departure: 45 min before sunrise → 45 min after sunrise
• Evening return: 1 h before sunset → 30 min after last light

What will you hear?

Bugling whoopers and yapping barnacle flocks like a huge crowd; the whole Svalbard barnacle population is on one estuary.

Binoculars?

Binoculars helpful. Swans on the floodlit ponds are close; binoculars for barnacle flocks on the merse and Islay fields.

Where to go

• WWT Caerlaverock, Dumfries — Entire Svalbard barnacle population winters on the Solway; whoopers on the floodlit pond. Map
• RSPB Loch Gruinart, Islay — Tens of thousands of barnacle and Greenland white-fronted geese; the most remote option. Map
• WWT Welney, Ouse Washes — Thousands of whoopers; floodlit evening swan feeds (busy with visitors, generator hum). Map

How to go on your own, and what it costs

Caerlaverock: WWT centre with hides (paid, daytime; check the whooper feed time); the public road and Caerlaverock NNR merse to the east are free. Loch Gruinart: free RSPB hide and trail, open at all hours; ferry Kennacraig–Islay (CalMac). Welney: paid WWT centre; the Ouse Washes public bank at Welney bridge is free.

Cost: WWT Caerlaverock £4.50–£5 adult, WWT Welney £6.75–£7.45 adult (2026); RSPB Loch Gruinart free; Islay ferry fares apply.

Field-recording notes

WWT feeds are busy and floodlit, but roosting birds away from hides are clean. On Islay the geese are on farmland — record from the road with permission from the farm, and be aware of licensed goose shooting on some farms Nov–Feb.

Sources

• WWT Caerlaverock
• RSPB Loch Gruinart

Similar spectacles

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• Goose autumn at the Lange Lacke, SeewinkelAustria · Wintering waterfowl · peak 20 Oct–10 DecGeese in skeins of thousands crossing the pastures at dusk, greylag chatter on the soda lake roost through the night, cranes trumpeting overhead in late October, eagle calls; the salt-steppe silence in between.
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More: all spectacles in the United Kingdom · wild geese · winter geese, swans and ducks · the United Kingdom in January · the United Kingdom in February · the United Kingdom in November · the United Kingdom in December