STEADY NUMBERS OF RED-BREASTED GEESE WELCOMED THE NEW YEAR IN COASTAL DOBROUDZHA

Posted on January 4, 2015

After a severe cold spell in late December 2014, the monitoring of wintering geese conducted by a team of the Wildlife Conservation Society on January 3, 2015, revealed the following situation:
Red-breasted Geese – 16 290, of which 13440 in Shabla Lake Complex (Shabla – Ezerets lakes and Shabla Tuzla) and 2850 in Durankulak Lake and the sea front.
Greater White-fronted Geese – 54 905, of which 38 405 in the Shabla Lake Complex and 16 500 in Durankulak Lake and the sea front.
Graylag Geese – 32 birds were observed in the two wetlands.

About 75% of the geese had roosted in the lakes.

The winter picture at the two wetlands was complemented by large concentrations of other wintering waterfowl in the Shabla –Ezerets lake, including about 11500 Eurasian Coots and 1900 Mallards and hundreds of Common Pochards and Tufted Ducks, 82 Red-crested Pochards, 8 Smew, 45 Whooper Swans and 280 Мute Swans. The lake provided also 2 Ferruginous Ducks, whose presence is unusual at this time of the year and a White-headed Duck, which besides being extremely rare in our northern coastal lakes, is another globally threatened species along with the Red-breasted Goose.

Other interesting sightings included two White-tailed Eagles in the region of Durankulak Lake, about 70 Marsh Harriers in the area of the two wetlands, 29 Pygmy Cormorants in the Shabla Lake Complex and 2 Pallas’s Gulls at Shabla-Ezerets Lake – a rarity for the Bulgarian Black Sea coast in the winter.

Regarding the hunting pressure, which is one of the biggest threats to the wintering waterfowl at both wetlands, much greater hunting pressure was registered in the region of Durankulak Lake – about 2100 shots in only 2 hours, including one Greylag goose killed (a protected species, prohibited for hunting).
At the same time we noted about 450 shots at the Shabla lakes. The bigger problem here was the chasing and disturbance of geese feeding in the fields around Shabla lakes throughout the day.