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What bird of prey would attack a skein of geese?
While walking the dog this morning I was stopped in my tracks by the noise coming from the sky. I made out two skeins of geese who suddenly came together and whirled round a few times with their cries getting evermore frantic.
It was very hard to see what kind of geese or what kind of raptor was chasing them but it was spectacular.
I can't imagine what bird would take them on.
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Was the raptor attacking the geese or were the geese mobbing the raptor?
In the sticks near Peterborough
They were definitely in a panic nut and a darker shade of bird (no larger than the geese) was working them into tighter circles. I wish I'd had binoculars with me. There were a few rooks at a distance - probably came out to see the spectacle, or what pickings there might be.
I've never heard of (or seen) eagles in this area no but have spotted buzzards and sparrowhawks. I have been to Specsavers but they haven't managed to give me 20/20 vision yet
sounds interesting, I'd like to have seen that. But I'm very poor at bird ID and would have been no help
In the sticks near Peterborough
More likely to be a buzzard - but I'd have thought the geese would have seen one of those off - unless they were taken by surprise. I've seen rooks and crows regularly gang up on buzzards with great effect.
Geese are a bit useless I think - coming back from The Pentlands the other week, I did a double take on the Edinburgh by pass. There was one coming towards me, flying very low, down the middle of the road...
I didn't like to tell him the airport was in the other direction....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Nut you would have identified the geese by the sound, no problem I just wondered if anyone else had seen anything similar. Jo - it's sad when we can't say anything about what we've seen. I couldn't even see the shape of the wings.
I don't think a goose would be bothered by anything smaller than an eagle.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
Do birds ever work together? It could have been the rooks looking after 'their' space, but from the very panicky calls they were under threat.
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Could it have possibly been a heron being mobbed by the geese? Herons will take baby goslings so geese will always see them as their enemies, whether they have small goslings with them or not.
Rooks will mob a heron too.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Dove that's a thought - the local heron hangs out around there and so does the local buzzard. I've just never seen two groups of geese get together and make so much noise.
Thanks for all suggestions and I'll go for the one with the happy ending.
Fairy - that would have been quite a fright, seeing the goose heading towards you.
They're b...dy big birds.