The TBC Records Sub-committee has recently completed it's review of Taiga Bean Geese, following the BOU 'split' of January 2018. Instead of the former 'Bean Goose' we now have Taiga Bean Goose and Tundra Bean Goose as two separate species.
Taiga Bean Goose is extremely rare in Cleveland, with just 4 accepted records: 3 in the Saltholme Pools/Haverton Hole area 13th-16th Nov 2005, 7 in the Port Clarence/Cowpen Bewley area 28th-29th January 2006, 22 opposite Back Saltholme on 13th Feb 2010 and 1 in the RSPB Saltholme/Haverton Hole/Cowpen Bewley area from 18th Feb to 1st May 2015. Well done if you saw any of those, you're in proud possession of a Cleveland tick!
Tundra Bean Goose is much more regular and is the 'default' bean goose in Cleveland. So far we have 'pinned down' 40 records involving about 160 birds in total.
However, we have been left with 36 records which are either/or in the absence of any descriptions, photographs or even a mention of what race they were. Some of these relate to very old records, while some are fly-over birds which could not be racially identified. It would be nice to try and nail at least some of these 'bean goose sp.' records though, so if you have photos/detailed notes on any of these can you let me know?
8/2-15/3/1970, 7 at Cowpen Marsh
3-9/11/1976, 3 at Cowpen Marsh and Seal Sands
13 & 21/2/1978, 2 on Seaton Common
2-5/1/1979, 11 on Coatham Marsh
23-25/1/1979, 1 at Saltholme Pools
11/2/1979, 10 at Crookfoot
19/2-4/3/1979, 53 in the Marske area
28/2/1979, 5 on Seal Sands
17/10-4/11/1981, 2 at Crookfoot
22/12/1981, 11 at Hilton
24-31/1/1982, 17 at Scaling Dam
5/3/1982, 10 at Scaling Dam
28/12/1982, 1 at Scaling Dam
4-5/2/1984, 1 at Dormans Pool
23-30/1/1986, 5 at Grinkle
6/3/1986, 8 at Cowpen Marsh
3/1-10/3/1987, 3 at Dormans/Saltholme Pools
21/1/-5/2/1987, 5 at Scaling Dam
19/2-2/3/1988, 2 at Dormans/Saltholme Pools
15/12/1991, 4 at Scaling Dam
18-28/2 & 12/3/1992, 4 at Scaling Dam
24/12/1992 & 3/1/1993, 4 at Scaling Dam
16/2-3/3/1993, 2 at Cowpen Marsh
25/2-4/3/1993, 8 at Crookfoot
18/6-2/7/1993, 1 at Reclamation Pond
23/1-8/2/1996, 5 at Scaling Dam
1/3/1997, 1 at South Gare
26/2/1999, 4 at Cowpen Marsh
18/2/2005, 1 at Saltholme Pools
So dig out those old photos and slides, it would be a shame to lose some of these as bean goose sp. if we could identify them to species level.
Cheers, Graeme Joynt, on behalf of the Records Sub-committee