VisitScotland, Scotland’s national tourist board is encouraging tourists and visitors to follow in the webbed-footsteps of the record breaking number of geese flocking to parts of Scotland this autumn.

The Scottish Wildlife Trust and the RSPB have both reported the highest number of geese ever recorded in Montrose Bay and the Inner Hebridean island of Islay.

Around 65,000 Pink Footed Geese have arrived at the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s Montrose Basin (15,000 more than last year), while nearly 29,000 Barnacle Geese and Greenland White Fronted Geese have been spotted at the RSPB Loch Gruinart Nature Reserve on Islay.

Kathryn Macdonald, product manager at VisitScotland said: “We’re delighted that so many geese are flocking to Scotland and we would encourage nature lovers across the country to go and see these spectacular gatherings at one of the dedicated RSPB, Scottish Wildlife Trust or Scottish Natural Heritage bird reserves.”

Late autumn is one of the best times to see geese across Scotland, as hundreds of thousands of birds descend on the country for the winter months. The country is host to some of the biggest geese flocks in the UK, so there is no shortage of places to witness this, from Islay and the Aberdeenshire coast to the Montrose Basin or the Solway Firth.

A spokesperson for the RSPB said: “Every year hundreds of thousands of geese fly in from their northern and Arctic summer breeding grounds to spend the winter here in Scotland.

This arrival en masse really does herald the fact that we are firmly into that wonderful”. Some of the geese have flown more than 1,200 km from their breeding grounds and will now spend the winter in Scotland. They leave Scotland around March or April, when they return to their northern and Artic breeding grounds.