Svalbard barnacle geese at dawn (Branta leucopsis hrota)

Svalbard Island in the Lofotens is home to a colony of barnacle geese. The entire population winters in south-west Scotland on the Solway Firth. The establishment of the WWT reserve at Caerlaverock in the 1950s was the means whereby the group recovered from a few dozen couples in the 1940s to its present size which runs into the tens of thousands. At dawn, the geese leave their roost to fly to their feeding grounds in the nearby fields.