Anti-goose tapes at Killinallan

The management of Barnacle geese on Islay (around 40,000 arrive from Greenland each winter) is complex and expensive.  The geese do a significant amount of damage to grazing and farmers are compensated broadly in accordance with the number of geese they harbour.  A team of goose counters is employed by Scottish Natural Heritage to monitor the numbers on the farms throughout the winter.
Another of the aims is to keep the geese off some areas of re-seeded grass.  One of the methods (perhaps the most successful) is to protect the field by sticking lots of canes in the ground to which are attached long streamers. The canes have to be quite densely packed.  This is effective (for a while), but requires a lot of maintenance.  We took this little bit of video of a field being caned this morning up at Killinallan.  Winds of 50mph plus are expected tonight however, which will probably undo some of the work....
Carl