Bart Irwin: Geese count depends on timing

Getting an accurate understanding of geese in the Northern Territory is all about when the count is done, argues NT Field and Game’s Bart Irwin.

Magpie geese numbers are down, but there’s a perfectly good reason for it. Picture: Contributed

Ray Peck of Hawthorn in Victoria is a regular contributor to the NT News letters page and a couple of his letters this year have highlighted the reduction in magpie goose nesting from the hundreds of thousands to around 50,000.

Well Ray, I think I have the answer for you and it’s not related to hunting.

It’s synchronicity.

Not the song by Police, but the fact that the goose nesting regions and those geese are not nesting all at the same time.

This is how the public servant charged with the annual aerial goose count explained the drop in the count.

This has given skewed nesting numbers as early nesting has been missed.

This could be the result of the aerial survey being conducted three months later in May now than it did when over 200,000 nests were counted in February for the majority of the 40 years of monitoring.

Magpie geese nesting numbers depend on when the count is done. Picture: Glenn Campbell

I pointed this out when I was on one of the aerial surveys when I noticed slightly older nests that were now unused in the same areas as current nests had parents sitting on eggs.

It was even stated by the head public servant in charge of the aerial survey that “double-clutching” was likely to be occurring where parents were breeding twice during the Wet.

My observation was reported in 2018 and yet, it is only now that this may be being recognised as fact.

It is inconsistent to think that more than 1,860,000 geese could only have had 46,000 nests as reported to me this Wet season.

The rainfall was good, it came over the full spread of the Wet.

It might be time to return to counting earlier in the year or move the count to a Dry season period when all the birds have fledged are concentrated on the diminishing wetlands.

That would make sense wouldn’t it.

NT Field and Game have practice clay target shooting every Friday from 4pm and Sunday from 9am till noon from the tallest towers in the Top End. All welcome.

The NT Field and Game hold clay target practice at the Mickett Creek Shooting Complex range from 4pm every Friday and today from 9am till noon. All are welcome to join in the fun.

Join Field and Game, ntfieldandgame.com.au

Like NT Field and Game on Facebook.

Email: [e-mail]