Image © Acabashi; Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 4.0; Source: Wikimedia Commons

The Living Wandle Landscape Partnership Scheme has been monitoring Canada goose populations in the Wandle Valley to gain a greater understanding of their numbers and possible effects. With help from volunteers, the partnership have been conducting annual goose counts. For the last two years, GiGL have helped digitise the new data and to visualise the results.

In 2016, the visualisation showed the results of the numerical count, location and, where it was known, the life stage of the geese observed. Three species of goose were recorded and mapped: Canada geese, Egyptian geese and greylag geese. This was a nice opportunity for GiGL to demonstrate how complex data can be displayed clearly and simply. This year, only juvenile Canada geese were mapped, with sites with positive results of breeding populations highlighted.

Sarah Perry, Living Wandle Project Officer said: “It was great to have GiGL’s expertise in digitising and mapping the data, not only because the maps are clear to read and can be used as a tool for planning future surveys, but also because we know the data we collected is safely stored with GiGL and made available for wider enquiries about the Wandle Valley.”

The Living Wandle Partnership is a Heritage Lottery Funded scheme involving 28 partner organisations and spanning four boroughs connected by the River Wandle; Croydon, Sutton, Merton and Wandsworth. The partnership has provided a unique opportunity to carry out cross-borough counts of geese populations relatively easily, with all of the major landowners and some local groups being involved in the scheme and helping with the surveys.

The 2015 goose management toolkit, 2016 moult count and 2017 juvenile count are available to read via the links.