Geese going the wrong way..? (1 Viewer)

I live in North West Poland so I am lucky enough to be more or less on the flight path of a lot of migrating geese and the last few weeks it has been, as always, beautiful to watch them fly by. This morning, however, I was left confused when I heard the familiar sound of geese above me, only to look up and see them quite high up, heading directly North-East, the complete opposite direction that they normally go. They also didn't have the usual v-shape formation that I usually see, they were flying close together in a very clear diagonal line, I would say faster than I usually see, and their bodies were clearly white with dark wings. Because of the call, I feel quite sure they were geese and because of the height they already were, they were already 'on course' if that makes sense.... Can anyone help me with what they were and why they were flying 'with purpose' in the wrong (but maybe right) direction...?

To a good feeding area I would presume, perhaps from a roost to meadows or to a regular staging post.

Big flocks going over every day here in Lithuania too, though at a very local level they can be going the 'wrong' way in as much as they are heading to favoured meadows.

Yep - they'll often fly 10-20 km from safe roost sites (usually large lakes) to favoured feeding sites, and that can be any direction, and often quite high up too.

Thanks guys

I did read that they could be going to feeding sites, the problem I have with that is that to my knowledge (from my books mostly), we don't have resident winter populations of geese here and only a small population of greylag geese in the summer... so I would imagine, they are already heading in the opposite direction.

From my description of the flight formation and description underneath the bird, does anyone know if that fits with greylag geese, or any other?

(Nutcracker, I assume you're from the NE of England, me too, although living in Poland now).

This is quite normal. Ringing data of geese wintering in Poland show they roam around a large area covering most of Poland and Germany. Movements several 100s of km back and forth during winter are normal. They don't stay in one site all winter. There is also (partially the same) phenomenon of reverse migration during weather change. This is in addition to daily movements between feeding and roosting areas.

Your geese will be White-fronted or Bean, both passing over in numbers at present.

Great, thanks everyone!! Strangely enough I saw another flock (or perhaps the same one) in the evening heading in roughly the same direction. I wasn't aware that we had geese wintering here so that explains it now.